Hand painting this pine kitchen was no walk in the park!
Here’s a knotty pine bespoke kitchen, I recently hand painted in The Park Estate, Nottingham. Fitted around twenty five years ago wooden kitchens like this were very fashionable, especially oak and pine, this one was no exception!
My client had asked me about hand painting this inherited traditional knotty pine kitchen, not only to modernise the spacious family area but also to add some additional light into the north facing room which was always quite dark during the winter months. I would be painting it in an equivalent colour to Little Green Slaked Lime (Mid) a light colour which would add the appearance of more space and reflect natural light around the room.
The Park Estate is a private residential housing estate which is located to the west of Nottingham City Centre, its setting is in over 150 acres of former deer park originally from Nottingham Castle. The first domestic residence was a vicarage which was built in 1809 and used by St Mary’s Church. The Park Estate is well known locally for its Victorian architecture and still uses gas street lighting, belived to be one of the largest networks in Europe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Park]. I have been fortunate enough over the years to be contacted by numerous residents of The Park to carry out various projects to their notable properties.
There was a lot more prep involved, than meets the eye with this kitchen, due to it being constructed from reclaimed (salvaged) pine meant there were lots of defects to make good prior to any hand painting going on!
The doors were ‘in-frame’ which meant they sit in line with the frames and not over them. I first remove all the doors and draws and mark where they come from; these are then stacked and as I prep and paint them on my work bench, they are transferred to my Erecta-Rack modular racking system, at the same time I can then work on the frames as well, therefore no time is lost waiting for products to dry off and the job is kept at a steady flow.
Preparation:
Next job is a deep and thorough de-wax I’ve opted for Fluxaf Pro Clean, I find this product slightly more aggressive than others for removing the previous wax finish from the pine and as its concentrated, I can dilute its strength to suit. For good old belt n braces I finish of the prep with a generous splash of meths on a cloth and liberally apply to all surfaces.
Priming:
Once I’ve applied a coat of high adhesion primer to all surfaces, this highlights all the imperfections so I can start the fine filling process. The special primer also acts as a sealer to stop any knots or tanning from the wood.
Once all the filling is done, its time to start sanding; I use dust free sanding systems so that most of the dust is removed by local extraction which is attached to a variety of sanding machines.
A second primer is then applied to all surfaces and lightly sanded back, thus creating the perfect base for applying the top coats of highly durable furniture paint. All the pine knobs received the same treatment as they were being painted in a French Grey colour.
Painting:
After several days of de-greasing, priming, filling, sanding, priming and sanding again, all surfaces were ready to start painting. I use a variety of primers and paints, which all serve specific purposes for each type of surface being painted. The finishing paint for this particular project was a oil based eggshell supplied by my specialist paint company.
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