If you’re an experienced furniture painter then there’s no doubt that you have already come across the dreaded “bleed-through”. And normally when you were least expecting it.  If you’re a newbie to furniture painting then you’ll want to keep reading because, at some point, the pesky bleed-through may raise it’s ugly head and you’ll want to know how to stop it in it’s tracks.

You’ll probably first notice it as your first coat of paint is drying, sometimes (and even more annoyingly) it won’t appear until you apply the Finishing Cream. Some unusual colours will start showing through the paint. Normally yellow or brown but it could be any colour depending on what has caused the stain.

Bleed-through can happen for all sorts of reasons … natural tannins in the wood, food stains, nicotine or certain types of varnish and no matter how many coats of paint you apply, the dirty patches will not disappear.  It’s frustrating but there is a simple solution.

Yucky bleed-through 🙁

How to STOP bleed through

First of all – STOP PAINTING!

Then, grab your Vintage Rocks Finishing Cream (it doesn’t matter whether it’s gloss or matt finish)

With the paint dry, coat the whole piece with one coat of Finishing Cream and allow to dry fully.

The Finishing Cream will block the stain and subsequent coats of paint should cover any yellow patches.  If not, repeat the process. Depending on the severity of the stain, it could take a few layers.

To finish, we recommend using Vintage Rocks Buzz Wax as this will penetrate the paint rather than diluting it and risking the stain showing again.

Here’s Paula from Fairy Chic Emporium to show you how she used this exact technique to block some troublesome stains on a wooden tray that she was upcycling …

Now you know how to stop bleed through when using chalk paint, you’ll feel super confident in taking on any painting project, no matter how grimey!

Have you tried this technique? If so, let us know how you got on.