Tuesday, December 3, 2013

White Painted Table, Dealing with Bleed Through

Lilyfield Life white painted hall table Sydney

One of my clients who has a lot of my painted furniture in her house recently asked to to paint her hall table. It's one of those Indonesian timber tables that "bleed" when you paint it. I would normally hesitate when accepting these paint jobs as they are difficult, time consuming and costly in paint, but Danielle is lovely and has been very supportive of my work so I said yes. 

Well I am getting better at dealing with bleed through more quickly. I can always deal with it but dealing with it quickly is what you need when painting for payment. You see below the pink hues of bleed through on the drawers and in the slats.


dealing with bleed though when painting balinese furniture

Someone asked me the other day what bleed through is. Bleed through is due to migration of tannins or timber stain from the substrate through the paint film.It is when timber has been stained or is naturally oily or full of tannin and the piece is not fully sealed, when you paint or prime the piece, the colour "bleeds" through the paint, causing your paint to discolour and go pink or brown. It most often occurs with old mahogany or cedar furniture, on resinous knots or open wood grain of pine and these Balinese pieces that have dark stain and timber edging where it isn't smoothly cut (ie on slats, on joins etc).

You may not always be able to tell if your piece is going to bleed but you will generally notice it immediately as you paint. I have known some pieces to not discolour for up to a week but that's unusual.


Lilyfield Life white painted hall table Sydney

The usual way to stop bleed through is to use the shellac based Zinsser BIN primer. The one with the burgundy coloured label. It is expensive so I have a tin that I only use to combat this problem and I use other Zinsser primers for less difficult pieces. I have found that spraying the BIN on is more effective than brushing it. With bleed through on vintage mahogany pieces two coats of primer is usually enough to contain it but these pieces of Balinese furniture can take many more coats that that. Spraying agitates the stain less and contains it more quickly.


Lilyfield Life white painted hall table Sydney

This piece bled more than any other piece I have painted, especially because of all those slats. I used a whole can of Zinsser BIN and it still bled. So I used some Rustoleum 2X white primer paint lacquer I had been given at their launch party. It sealed it very nicely and I then used chalk paint to paint over the lacquer. 



Lilyfield Life white painted hall table Sydney

This piece had a big crack right down the timber top where the timber panels had separated. Danielle said to not bother fixing but after it was painted white, it looked more obvious and I couldn't cope with it so I told her I was fixing it at no extra charge. I filled the hole and then when I went to sand the wood putty flat, the timber started to bleed and bleed again. Back out came the spray can. Anyway the extra effort was worth it as the top is beautifully finished now. 


Lilyfield Life white painted hall table Sydney

Danielle wanted this piece distressed and when I started sanding it I still had more bleed through. There are still a couple of tiny spots where you can see pale pink but we ended up deciding that was okay.  I think it's just the nature of these Balinese pieces and once the piece is in use in a room you will never notice. I get a bit perfectionist with my work as I am dealing with it so closely with my face 10cm from the painted timber surface. Once the furniture is in use in someones house you never notice these little imperfections. 


Lilyfield Life white painted hall table Sydney

Lilyfield Life white painted hall table Sydney

In the photo above you can notice little slivers of pink on the distressing on that middle slat.


Lilyfield Life white painted hall table Sydney


For more help with dealing with paint problems read here

The tissue paper pom pom is home made and you can find the tutorial here. I painted (well actually half painted as I haven't finished yet) the ampersand and it will be for sale soon. The candlestick holder I found at the markets and is painted white. The felt floral cushion on the left is from Spotlight years ago, the middle beige and black cushion is made by me and is for sale and the putty white cushion on the right is from Flower Power. The painting above the hall cabinet is by John Downton and was my mother's. It's of Haycock in Ben Boyd National park near Eden where we used to go to the beach in my childhood.

have a great day.
Fiona


7 comments:

  1. i hate dealing with bleeders! turned out fabulous!

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  2. gorgeous as always, Fiona. I think I would be too scared to paint something with all those slats. Love the pom pom, clever you.

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  3. Considering all the problems you had with it looks really good-love dee x

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  4. You have such a good heart to accept this piece as a project! And so much patience! Well done!
    Robin

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  5. You have one lucky customer. Looks beautiful

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  6. Your advice could not have been more timely! I am about to paint a bare-wood indonesian table that is heavily carved - since I don't have a spray gun, I will be very interested to see if Rustoleum 2x does the trick! Thanks once again Fiona!

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  7. Stunning again. You would never know you had problems.
    Bec x

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Thanks for taking the time to comment! Sorry if you have trouble commenting, you can always email me at lilyfieldlife@bigpond.com