Custom Order: My first experience painting MDF

If anyone has ever painted MDF, you know how frustrating it is to get an even surface after sanding. What's worse is the frightening look of the piece once you actually get down to the final layer after sanding away the fake wood grain and previous finish. 

Why not use chalk paint? That stuff sticks to anything right? Well the truth of the matter is, yes I could have used chalk paint, but this finish was damaged, and even TSP couldn't get through some of the years of wear on this surface. And we are big...I mean HUGE advocates of preparing a surface for paint because it truly makes all the difference in the world with your finish. 

So after we finally got an even surface, the MDF was so absorbent and "furry" that I knew we were gonna have to turn to the big guns and set down a sealer rather than going straight to paint. We applied 4-5 layers (with sanding in-between) of BIN Shellac based primer. This stuff will stick to anything! And it gave us the solid foundation by sealing the MDF we needed to create a hard surface. It also primed the base since we were going with a custom color.

The color is a custom mix of General Finishes products. I used about 60% Millstone, 10% lamp black and 30% Van Dyke Brown glaze. I used glaze to help tone this color from going grey so more of a Beige/Khaki color. The top was painted in Lamp Black and sealed with 3 coats of HP Topcoat in Satin. The knobs were sprayed in a black gloss enamel which is my favorite go-to for hardware. The customer wanted use to leave all the dings and nicks to give it a little bit of character. 

*I apologize now for my crooked pictures. My 1 year old was having a bad day and would not let me focus. 

Overall, the experience painting MDF wasn't bad once you got passed the fright of a super absorbent surface. But it's something that was easily remedied with my trusty BIN primer. And my customer was happy with finish so was I. Hope this helps someone who stayed away from MDF pieces!