Back To Home and Back To Wax

After playing around at the beach and visiting with family and friends I have to admit that there is truly, "no place like home."  Right?  Crawling back into your own bed on that first night and waking up to all that is familiar is such a good feeling! I welcome back the routine of our house - how ever crazy it may be. :)

I was so happy to hear from so many of you while I was gone. I love seeing all those messages in my inbox! Your encouragement and support for Locksley Lane has been so much fun.  I was amazed at all of the paint questions and the requests for more healthy recipes!

So let's try to figure out what is going on with all of those questions I received about Annie Sloan's Clear Wax.  The questions are clearly falling into two categories; am I using too much and why is it streaking?

First of all, you don't need a lot of wax. You can use a brush or you can use a lint free rag. After you rub your wax in, you should not be able to drag your finger across the wax and see a finger mark. It should be slightly damp. That's it. Whichever method you prefer you should be pushing your wax into the paint and finishing it just like you do with paint - in one fluid motion from left to right or top to bottom.  Try not to make circles with your wax as you will really notice this once it dries.

Before you wax, you need to understand that furniture wax is not suppose to be a glossy poly finish.  You can get a nice shine with wax, but you will probably see some brush strokes and a little streaking. To me, that's what makes your piece unique.  If you don't want any streaks or it is frustrating you, use a poly finish.  Minwax has a nice rub on poly that works very nicely with chalk paint.

Don't over rub your wax.  Put it on, rub it in and then leave it alone.  Come back and buff it out with either 0000 steel wool or a soft rag after about 24 hours.

I think there are a lot of perfectionists out there looking for the "perfect" finish.  If you want a perfect glossy finish, use a poly.  There is no shame in that!  If you want a truly vintage finish, then use wax.  It's less shiny and gives a nice hard durable finish to your piece.  This is a finished piece below.  You can still see streaks but the wax is even and smooth as glass to the touch.

For the tops of tables that are going to get a lot of sunlight, you can put a little bit of plain mineral spirits mixed into your wax.  This will give you a smoother gloss like finish because it's more like a glaze and you have time to spread it out and play with it.  Try it, if the top is not looking how you want it to.  Not too much.  Use half a tsp of mineral spirits to a half a cup of wax.

Hope this helps.  If not, email me and we can figure it out.

Great being back!

Paula