Part of a recreated street of Ballycultra, the town area of of the Ulster Folk Museum.
With a trip to London planned, I decided to fly to the U.K. a few days early last month to visit Belfast in Northern Ireland to meet Heritage Carpenter Peter Sloan and Curator of History Fiona Byrne at the Ulster Folk Museum. They are working together to document and photograph all the many chairs and other seating in the museum’s collection, and kindly pulled some for me from storage so that I could take a closer look. Then Peter showed me around the open-air living history museum.
Located just outside of Belfast, the museum, which opened in 1964, is currently undergoing a £50 million “Reawakening Project.” It includes 60 historic buildings that have been moved to the site from across Ulster and reconstructed in town and country settings to allow visitors to experience life in the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Below are just some of the chairs that are currently in storage.
And here are some scenes from buildings in the living history museum:
And of course I found some cats, basking under a heat lamp in a hay-filled wooden wagon.
If you find yourself in Belfast or thereabouts, the Ulster Folk Museum is well worth a visit. And you might find Peter Sloan in the joiner’s shop, dressed in period clothing.
The revised edition of “Make Fresh Milk Paint” is at the printer, and expected to ship at the end of November. It’s almost twice as long as the first edition, and features a new cover color so it’s easily distinguished from the first edition: a cheerful earthy orange (a fine color to mix from quark, lime and fancy dirt). So what contributed to those additional pages? Read on, as author Nick Kroll takes you through the changes.
Nick here! Thank you all for taking a leap of faith and making your own fresh milk paint. And thanks again to everyone who reached out to give feedback, asked for help and experimented with their own techniques. I never imagined how many of you would join me in destroying our kitchens, but I am sincerely grateful to every one of you.
Over the past year, I’ve (again) made an obscene amount of paint. Good (and bad) ideas were tested to refine the process. We ran experiments to find reliable solutions for common issues. Many of you raced up that learning curve and broke new ground.
The result of this effort is that the revised edition is now twice as long at just under 200 pages, with about 75-percent more text and many new images. Thanks everyone who contributed pictures of their projects!
There are additions spread throughout the book, but the most important updates are as follows. You’ll find more details and a few surprises if you wish to purchase the book, but the relevant topics are:
A deep dive on lime This new chapter on lime covers types, including dolomitic vs calcitic lime, where to source, handling tips, etc. You can use almost any hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) that you can find, except the “Hi-Yield” brand seems to have issues when used for paint.
Pigment guide • There’s more detail on using pigments, but the core sentiment remains: Get a lot of pigments, blend them like you don’t know the rules, and enjoy. It would be a dull world if we all followed the same recipe for green. • A rundown of every pigment formula will just give you anxiety as you try to figure out their exact composition. Practically any pigment will somehow work, given enough patient coats. The exceptions are non-lime compatible pigments such as Milori blue/Prussian blue. But the chemistry of the pigment does affect handling. • Iron oxide red/yellow/black pigments are foolproof and cover very well with two to three coats. Start with one of those to build confidence. • Copper phaltho blues are translucent for multiple coats and the lighter versions can take eight or more coats – definitely not the place to start for your first batch. But you can make these work once you get a little experience. And they look great when done right. • If you want light colors (i.e. sky blue), dark pigments tinted with a little titanium white gives great coverage with minimal effort. • Many coats in a short time frame can cause flaking paint. Go slow, especially with any pigment that needs more than three or four coats. Later coats will need more drying time. Repair any flaking by sanding those spots to bare wood and repainting those spots – they’ll blend in fine. • Pigment names change between brands and over time, so there is no “buy this exact pigment to get this color” shopping list. A little mystery is important to the creative process. Better to get pigments you can easily find locally and experiment with them, rather than hunting down Kossoghol Blue. I still don’t like mica pigments, but I won’t stop you from making Quarkschläger. • Also not included: “Where should I order pigments from” because this can change over the years. Currently, earthpigments.com (U.S.) and ocres-de-france.com (Europe) are excellent sources. But any local art supply shop is also a good source. • Magic ratio by weight = 10 parts plain paint base : 1 part pigment. Infinite scaling up or down.
Techniques
• Plenty more details in the technique section, but the most important rules remain: Apply thick paint, thinly. Watery paint is bad. Draw out the paint, don’t slop it on. Let it dry well between coats. • Adhesion issues most frequently came from too many coats in a short time; the new coat causes earlier coats to fail. Allow more drying/curing time between coats, especially with blues and phathlo greens. • Use less pigment for translucent color wash instead of watery paint. • Use more pigment (up to 40 grams) if the pigment is weak. • Burnishing can add instant depth and character. • You can paint walls. Yes, also over existing latex. But too much paint (water) per coat will cause the old latex to peel off the drywall. • Exterior use is possible, but the paint will wear with the elements. Topcoats and sloped/vertical surfaces are key. Avoid standing water. • For the love of all things holy, do not boil watery paint to try to thicken it. • Don’t try to annihilate the paint in the blender. Short bursts are fine. Blending more than about 30 second in total can lead to paint curing into a thick mess. • My apologies to everyone for not warning that thick paint can gel up solid overnight in the fridge. You can blend with water to recover or start over. It is preventable; a little extra water mixed in before storage prevents this. But there is a fine tipping point; you don’t want extra watery paint in the morning. Cal Mexicana (a lime) is also prone to delayed gelling. The same goes for low humidity environments, etc. Aiming to finish painting in one day (or half batches) avoids these challenges.
Troubleshooting Much of the troubleshooting section came from interactions with you all. So it’s only fair that that section is available here for free download, no sign-up needed—just click to download:
I’m looking forward to seeing your brushes in action. Feel free to reach out with any questions to me on Instagram or Substack. I’m also happy to see pics of your work!
We know our books costs good money (we think they are worth it). But we’ve held prices at current levels for more than four years now. And today we are offering free shipping on all domestic orders for the month of November.
There is no code to copy. No special link or back-door access. Just free shipping on everything big and small in our online store.
Make sure to start with the dovetails at the top right, where they can’t be seen. (I like to get the bad ones out of my system first.)
As you might know, I’ve been renovating my kitchen since the day after Thanksgiving 2025, when I began tearing out the old cabinets and vinyl flooring. And just in time for Thanksgiving 2026, my kitchen is once again functional, with upper and lower cabinets done and installed (well, they still need doors and drawer fronts, but they’re functional), a soapstone countertop, and a working range, dishwasher and sink.
Now I’m on to the not-as-critical items, including this shallow shelving unit that lips over the backsplash and rests on the counter. There are cleats glued under the top and the fixed shelf, through which I’ve screwed the unit to studs.
Overall, the carcase is 25-1/4″ wide x 8″ deep x 80″ high, and the exterior pieces and fixed shelf are just under 3/4″ thick. I was aiming for 3/4″, but I had a bit more twist in one board than I’d realized, so I finished up a little shy of that goal – but no matter. The seven movable shelves and drawer dividers are 5/8″ because ~3/4″ looked a little too inelegant to my eye (and the Sagulator deemed them “acceptable”). And of course, it’s all cherry.
The back is rabbeted to accept a 1/4″ plywood back that I covered with William Morris and Kate Faulkner “Mallow” pre-pasted wallpaper (just add water and a squeegee) before screwing it in place – an idea I borrowed from a number of British kitchen design feeds (this one is a favorite).
The build is fairly straightforward. The corners are dovetailed, and there’s a fixed shelf in the center to keep it from racking, plus two drawers dividers, captured in 1/4″-deep dados … that I decided to add mid-build.
Watch out – long dovetails coming through.
As usual, I didn’t do a full dry-fit – just started the joints to test the fit. If the tails are cut straight across and the pins are straight up and down – and there’s no waste left poking above the baseline and in the corners – the joints will go fully together. No need to smack them home until there’s glue involved.
What made the build a little tricky is the size. I had to saw the tails on the 80″-long sides with the board flat on a low bench which, while not difficult per se, takes some getting used to given that it’s a rare need. And the transfer required a bit of extra room, plus it was a little fiddly to ensure that everything was lined up square.
After cutting the backsplash notch (pictured above) and semi-dry-fitting the dovetails, I laid out and cut the 1/4″-deep dados with a crosscut saw, chisel and router plane. Then grabbed a bottle of fish glue for assembly. (I needed the long open time to get from one end to the other of this behemoth!)
The bottom-front joint was on the fine edge of too tight. I had to grab one of our hefty Hargrave clamps to pop it fully home. But whew – no split!
Once the glue was dry and everything was out of clamps, I used a shelf-hole jig to drill the support holes for the movable shelves. Then I had to go back to our favorite local(ish) lumberyard, because all the cherry I have left in my stash is 11″ or wider, and I certainly wasn’t about to cut that down for 7-7/8″-wide shelves!
Had I planned those drawers from the beginning, I’d have centered that fixed shelf in the open area rather than in the overall carcase. Ah, well. You can’t really tell once the shelves are in place and stocked with mugs, glasses and julep cups.
The drawers are per usual: half-blind dovetails on the 5/8″-thick cherry front, and through-dovetails at the back. The secondary wood is 1/2″-thick poplar, the bottoms are 1/4″ plywood captured in grooves in the fronts and sides, and kept from sliding out the back with a nail in a slot. The bottom drawer is shallower front to back by 1-1/2″ because of the backsplash, but both are large enough to hold boxes of tea. The 7/8″ tenoned Shaker pulls are from Nice Knobs.
The pulls are simply glued in place in matching mortises; I didn’t feel wedging the backs was needed for such light duty.
The finish is soft wax. And on the bottom, I applied some black adhesive-backed felt so as not to scratch my countertop as I slid it in place.
Now it’s on to designing and building a long, narrow island – more of an ait, really (in sticking with the British theme).
– Fitz
p.s. At the risk of self-aggrandizement/looking like a prat…if you’d like thorough instruction on through-dovetails and dados, you’ll find it in “Dutch Tool Chests.”
p.p.s. You might be wondering how I can possibly access the stuff at the top. After I’m done with the island, and the cabinet doors and drawer fronts, I’m installing a ladder rail on that wide panel between the upper and lower upper cabinets, then building a ladder that will hook over it. Stole Borrowed that from a British site, too…and ordered the hardware from the U.K. where it’s a lot easier to find.
Welcome to Open Wire, our bi-monthly Woodworking Q&A session.
Until 5 p.m. today, you can post your questions in the comment section below, then Chris and I, along with your fellow readers if they wish, will answer.
I’m writing this post about a week ahead of time, but it’s fairly safe to assume that as you read this, Chris is working on a chair in between his answers, and I’m unpacking from one teaching trip and getting ready for the next one (as is Chris – we’ll both be at the London International Woodworking Festival in two weeks).
Our final Open Wire of the year is on December 12.
