I’ve discovered a quick way to achieve chippy paint! I suppose I should say it’s an accidental way to achieve chippy paint because it happened without planning!
Here at The Blue Building, we often purchase dressers, chests, consoles and other pieces of furniture for resale that are accompanied by a mirror. More often than not, when a person buys a one of these pieces, they do not want the mirror. So I have accumulated a graveyard, if you will, of mirrors. Every so often, I will attack the pile with vengence and a can of paint.
Today was that day…and the color of the day was white!. I usually don’t spend alot of time prepping a mirror to be painted. I almost always finish them in a distressed manner so this reduced the need to be perfect in applying the paint. I paint one coat on the frame of the mirror. I usually us a latex paint. In this case I used Behr satin white with primer. If coverage is splotchy I will do a second coat. Once the paint is dry, I roughly and quickly use my sander on the edges of the mirror. You need to be careful not to hit the glass with the sander because the glass will scratch and that detracts from the look of the mirror because it actually damages the glass.
One mirror was an older walnut stained, probably mahogany underneath, mirror. There was not a slick finish since the mirror was very old. The paint went on smoothly but 2 coats were required. Since I was going for super a distressed look, a blotchy second coat was acceptable. After the second coat, I decided to clean up the mirror where I had strayed from the frame…aka sloppy painting. Usually I sand the piece, seal it and then clean the mirror where I have unintentionally slopped paint.
So I took the Windex-Johnson Wax 32 Oz Blue Trigger Spray Original Windex 80127
and gave one section of the mirror frame a light spray. As I wiped the mirror, again I’m sloppy, I rubbed the edge of the wooden frame and guess what the result was??? Chippy paint! Now distracted from cleaning the glass I sprayed other sections of the wooden frame and achieved the same look. Eureka! Finally I found and easy was to get that chippy look!
Now, I would imagine that not all painted wooden surfaces will react the same way. So I tried a second mirror. This one was newer, cherry, and had a more glossy finish. As I windexed this mirror, the end result was more streaky and less chippy. And that was ok too. It still has a cool distressed and aged look. You should experiment first. If you wipe harder, more paint will wipe off. Less pressure, more chippy. So practice first with pressure and amount of spray…then let her rip!
Will this happen everytime? I don’t know! Does practice make perfect? Yes! Was this easy! Oh yeah! Although I love milk paint and have tried several brands, I just can’t seem to get that chippy effect. This was super easy! Check back in a month or so, I will be experimenting some more with this finish! I will try to prefect this with the next batch of mirrors. I am anxious to try other colors as well!
If you like this finish, check out some of my other painting posts: Geometric Dresser or Side Table and Bench or Faux Plank Wall.
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