Little painting trick using vaseline

Long ago i posted about using vaseline (petroleum jelly) as a way to get a chippy paint finish.  It just makes it so the paint doesnt stick to whatever you are painting and then when the paint is dry, you wipe away the vaseline.  Easy enough.

Vaseline can also be used to cover up things that you dont want to get painted.  Such as hardware that you dont want to take off or cant get off!  Hinges, key hole locks, glass, etc.

Lets take this dresser i just finished up for example.  The old key hole locks werent easily removable, too much old gunk and paint made them way too difficult to remove.  My client had already painted them black when he brought me the dresser to paint.

Because i wasnt able to remove the locks and didnt want to get paint all over them, i used vaseline to cover the locks and keep the new paint from sticking.

All i did was use a small paint brush to paint vaseline over the lock, just make sure and lay it on pretty thick and cover the entire surface.

Then, just paint as normal.  I sprayed my paint on so i of course just went right over it.  You can still do this if you are using a brush, just go over it very lightly being careful not to spread the vaseline around too much.

After your paint is dry, take a paper towel and wipe over the area that you put the vaseline on.  All the paint will just wipe right off.

To get into the little details of this lock, i just took one of my paint gun brushes and scrubbed it a little.

Thats it, super easy!!  And much easier than messing with hardware and getting mad that you cant (or dont want to) take off!

(I didnt use the vaseline for all the hardware on this dresser, but i could have!)