How to Paint Mahogany Wood White (+ Avoid the Dreaded Bleed Through!)

I used a regular paint stripper to get the old paint off (it had been painted off white over 30 years ago). Then I sanded her with a small electrical sander with 100, 150 and 200 grid paper. I washed her thoroughly to get the sand dust and any remaining dust off.

This is where I made the big mistake. I primed the table with a regular 'sticks to everything and covers everything' primer. Well that claim turned out to be false. Mahogany (just like pine) has the tendency to bleed through. You can see here that after priming her white, see turned pink!

The pink kept coming through even after several layers.

I ordered some speciality primer that contained shellac. Shellac is this magic potion that will cover any stains, bleed throughs of knots in your wood. It goes on really thin and dries super fast

It kan also be sanded very well. Above you see the table after one coat of shellac. Perfectly white but the roughness of the wood was coming through. So I sanded her once more with a very fine grid paper and applied another coat of my white shellac primer.

After the shellac treatment my little table was already shiny white but I decided to add one coat of white paint to give her some extra durability.

After the new paint job I put my table through the test of serving us as our coffee table. She has held numerous cups of hot tea, had red wine spilled on her, supported our feet and was used as a crafting table at times. She held up through it all. The shellac primer protected her from all the abuse and the top finishing coat stayed on strong.

Now why did it take me years to finish this job?

Interested in more furniture makeovers?

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And maybe your are interested in finding out how to paint suitcases too