General Finishes - What is is GOOOD for? ....absolutely everything

Some time back we had a call from one of our favourite suppliers General Finishes UK to tell us they had moved their warehouse to Scotland and inviting us to pay a visit. The timing of this call was amazing. We had some time earlier decided to concentrate more on contracting and teaching than retailing.......but we still needed product to teach classes with and I needed something new to work with, I felt I was getting a bit stale teaching the same thing over and over and I also felt that people were looking for a new fresh looks so here we are, with a lovely new range to play with.

We have been using the products for an absolute age.....they are a truly professional product range that I never thought to bring to the DIY market but as soon as I had the call it was like a lightbulb moment.

So what does this product range offer the painter? A fully versatile easy to use paint and varnish range.
The Milk Paint was the first product we used about 10 years ago - washes of the paint were applied to beech units and then it was varnished with their High Performance Topcoat. We were so impressed, not just by the ease of use but how durable the system was

Three years later we had a large job toning new woodwork to match old woodwork and it all needed staining and varnishing and we used the water based Sanding Sealer, the Glazes and once again the High Performance TopCoat

before

after

Both these projects have lasted an absolute age...High Performance is really High Performance.


So what are the benefits of these two products over other paints, waxes, varnishes and lacquers

GENERAL FINISHES MILK PAINT - benefits

• Easy to use paint  
• GF Milk Paint isn't actually a traditional Milk Paint it is actually an acrylic paint, based on primer technology so it is self - priming. It will go over and adhere to old varnish, lacquer, paint (oil gloss as well as all others), wood stains, french polish; it can go inside and outside
• Beautifully smooth even when applied by the least experienced of us
• Consistent colours and quality - every tin is the same as the last
• Keeps without loss of quality for YEARS - providing you store it in the right conditions. We have some that is 10 years old and it is still good to go.
• No colour leaching
• Very quick drying
• Easy to touch up with no visible difference in colour - providing this is done before varnishing
• No need to wax or varnish in low traffic areas
• No wax
• Sealed with their varnish it is REALLY hard wearing for kitchens and bathrooms and high traffic areas

So here are a few questions I have answered recently about it -

• Q. Can I distress it?
• A. Yes it distresses beautifully. If you are not too worried about cutting right back through to the substrate then just layer the paint and sand back. If you want to isolate a colour and ensure that one coat only goes through to the next then apply a coat of topcoat between layers. Here is an image of what we produced in a recent class

Distressing

• Q. Is it suitable for painting prefinished kitchens - mine is looking tired
• A. YES!!!! Uber-suitable. Here is a kitchen that we originally painted over 15 years ago. Originally we painted it in oil based eggshell, glazed in oil based glaze and put the most durable oil based varnish we could find on it All these years on we were back to give them an equally long lasting finish in water based paints - using General Finishes Paint. 

• Q. Can I antique something I am painting?

• A. YES!  you use the premixed coloured glazes to put a transparent wash of colour over the surface - here is a tray we antiqued in that way. No wax!!!

•  Q.Can I use it on floors?
• A. YES!! Lovely to use on floors but use a few coats of the High Performance Topcoat. Here is our studio kitchen floor finished in a dry brush technique

Hopefully this gives you a bit of an insight into the new products. If you would like to find out more, then join us for one of our new

Furniture Painting 101 - General Finishes Painting Class

or join us for our Painting Party on the 26th April 2014