I Could Have Stopped at Two

Now I have to do four.

My first mistake was going for the third coat. For some reason I had it locked in my mind that I had to put three coats of this Navy Real Milk Paint on the spindles of this rocker. I recently applied three coats to some of the parts on the Student's Desk and they look great. But those parts are all pretty much flat and smooth.

Navy milk paint with one coat of Osmo.

The spindles on this rocker are neither flat or smooth. The texture created by my spokeshave created light areas where the wood "burns through" during sanding. I think working the flat surfaces on the desk had me wanting to add more paint than I needed, as I tried to avoid this look.

Yes, this is the same batch of paint. The color will darken with the first coat of clear.

But that's kind of the beauty of adding milk paint to this texture. The places where all the little edges show through emphasize the fact that these parts were made by hand. I really should have stopped at two.

My second mistake was thinking I had enough paint. There wasn't much left in the bucket, but I thought I could make it last long enough for just one more coat. I ran out exactly half way through. I made this judgement error because I was in a rush. I didn't want to stop to mix more paint.

Now I'm mixing more paint and I'm going to have to put on an extra coat.

I'll have to finish the third coat to even out the layers of paint. Then I'll have to put on a fourth coat to make sure the spindles are all the same color.

I think next time I'll avoid all the extra work and stop at two. And before I start adding the green to the rest of the chair, I'll mix up another batch of paint.