Is it Oil or Acrylic?
The Bold Abode is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com as well as other affiliate networks.
Experiments can get me in trouble sometimes…
Like the time I wanted to make a grape-vine wreath basket, and it turned out those vines in the backyard weren’t from grapes…
But instead they were the vines from the lovely Ivy of Poison!
Yikers. {But is was a lovely basket, I must say.}
Fortunately, for me… this experiment went just teensy bit better than than eighth-grade disaster.
The lead in is simple.
I had a door.
I wanted to paint that door.
It was metal.
Said door was in ye-ole garage… which was very dirty.
The door AND the garage…
Yikers…again.
Anyhoo, I want to clean them up. And paint the door.
But I’ve heard horror stories about painting acrylic over oil based, and I was not going to risk it, baby!
All you need is a little Isopropyl Alcohol.
Dip a Q-tip in the alcohol and in an inconspicuous area, rub it around on your test-subject.
If the paint pools and runs like above…
You’ve Got Acrylic!
So it’s safe to paint over it… and paint it I did! {That project is coming soon, yo.}
But it’s not only good for testing for Oil based paint… it’s good for removing acrylic paint.
See this stray spot?
Gone, daddy, gone!
So all those little stray dabs can be {carefully} cleaned up. Don’t go crazy and ruin the paint underneath, though.
And whatever you do, DON’T make a basket of Poison Ivy Vines…
Unless you need revenge… MU-whahahahaha!
who knew?!?! you are so smart!
Why, thank you! This little trick saved me a world of potential hurt, baby!
Great tip! I’ve never even thought to test out the old paint before. I guess I’m lucky I never crossed paths with some old oil paint!
I appreciate your sharing the paint type tip. I am just beginning the journey and it turns out folks didn’t get the memo about latex peeling if painted over oil on every single solitary piece of crown, casing, baseboard, mantle and cabinet in my entire house!!! Living a nightmare! Had to leave a comment my kindred spirit as I too have made the uncomfortable mistake of wreath making with poison ivy!!! Two injections and 21 days of steroids later…. I had to have someone walk me through the yard for plant class… at least by then my eyes were no longer swollen shut!! 😀
Thank you again!
Oh, my gosh! I thought I was the only one making poison ivy wreaths! Ha!
Thank you for stopping by, Denise! Come back again!
That horrific scenario happened to us too when we were young newlyweds and knew absolutely nothing about how to do home improvements…23 years later we are still dealing with it. How about you? How have you dealt with the nightmare?
A great post!