I like white painted furniture, so I shall assume here that you will also paint your furniture white or cream, and I shall reserve my remarks on painting in darker tones of colour for another occasion. White goes with anything and is easily decorated, as I shall hope to show. For a girl's room it looks cool, clean and dainty. White paint can be bought ready mixed, either in tins or by the pound, and if you know a reliable decorator you might purchase some off him ready for use, but of course you have to pay him for his trouble, and what you buy in tins is not only much more expensive than if you mix it up yourself, but is often adulterated. It is very little trouble to mix it yourself, and about half the price, so I will tell you how to set about this. Buy at some good oil shop or decorators say a couple of pounds of white lead ground in oil, a pint of best linseed oil, a pennyworth of patent driers and a pint of turpentine. The whole lot will cost you about 1s. 1d. A patent tobacco tin with a lid is a useful thing to keep your paint in, as when not in use the lid will keep it air-tight, and your paint will keep for a long time if not exposed to the air. Cover the lead with oil and if it is in a pound tin the oil should be an inch or more above the lead. Stir up with a palette knife to allow the oil to mix with the white, and add a tablespoonful or so of turps, and in a few hours the white will become the consistency of cream. If you find it too thick add more oil and a little turps and the driers, and proceed to strain through a piece of muslin. If you have another empty tin strain your paint into it by putting the muslin loosely over the empty tin, pouring some colour into the muslin and working it through by brushing it every now and again with a hog hair brush. The paint will gradually pass through the muslin, leaving any sediment or bits behind, and you then pour out a little more colour and work through, and so on until all is strained. You can finally squeeze the muslin with your palette knife against the side of the tin, but be careful not to allow any of the bits to pass through into your strained paint. The proportion of turps to oil should be one of former to three of latter, and of driers a piece the size of a walnut to the pound, but the tradesman of whom you buy your colour will tell you this. The paint for use should be the consistency of cream (not clotted or thickened) and should be put on evenly with a good brush, so you put enough oil and turps to make it this consistency. The brush is a very important item, and this is why amateur painters so often fail; they haven't a decent brush to work with. A good house painter's brush which has been in use some time is the ideal tool, and if you can borrow or hire such a one do. A wide, flat hog, say three inches wide will do, but it will not hold the colour that a house painter's brush will, and the constant filling of it adds to the labour of painting. Your brush should carry its colour so that you only have to use force enough to work the colour out on to your surface. You don't try to load the furniture with colour, but get on so much as easily passes from the brush to the wood. In filling your brush only dip the end into the paint, and then knock it against the side of pot or tin so as to distribute it through the hair and then it will not drop about when you use it. So many amateurs try to get a lot of colour on at once, and so get it on too thickly in places. Remember that you can only get a good surface by applying some three or four coats. Your first coat, as the under colour is dark, will look very dirty and thin, but this first coat is only a grounding one. The second coat, which must be applied when the first is quite dry, say in two days, will look much better, while the fourth coat ought to look nice and white. A painter to get a good surface keeps his paint the way of the grain of the wood. Thus the panel of the door would be vertical in grain, the drawer front horizontal. Take the panel for instance. You will get your colour on using your brush up and down. When it is covered "stroke" the paint evenly from left to right, and then "stroke" it again up and down. This will distribute the colour evenly, and if you do this carefully you will obtain a good surface.
Allow plenty of time between each coat, as to paint over a surface not quite hard will cause your paint to crack. If you find after your first coat that there are any cracks or holes in the old paint take a little of the stiff white lead, and with a little driers added to it use it as putty and stop up any places, levelling it over smoothly with a knife. By the time your last coat is on such defects ought not to show. If you decide not to decorate your furniture, as I have shown in illustration, then instead of using paint for the last coat buy a tin of white, ivory or cream enamel and use to finish. The enamel is not so easy to get on as paint owing to its sticky nature. You must apply it freely, but don't load it on, for the more evenly you apply it the better will it look. One coat will suffice if you have three good coats of paint underneath. When your brushes are not in use put them into a gallipot or other vessel half filled with water.
(To be continued.)
FIG. 2.—Top of chiffonier decorated with stencilling. The two plants used are the dandelion and cyclamen.
[A NEW PRIZE COMPETITION]
A NEW PRIZE COMPETITION