Mixing gloss and flat to create a satin finish

“Necessity is the mother of invention” as the saying goes and this is all the more true on the remote San Juan Islands. Occasionally we here at Stegman Painting find ourselves in the situation of too much house and not enough paint. Normally this is not a problem for people in our profession. When we run out of paint a quick trip to the local paint supply store has us restocked without much of a delay. But, occasionally here on the San Juan’s our local paint supply stores will have sold out and of course this means deliveries and days and ferry rides before restocking.

Recently we found ourselves in this situation on a project where we were using Rustoleum alkyd oil Satin. No satin to be found on the Island. After some research online though, I read that mixing flat and gloss in equal parts would create a satin finish. Luckily our local store did have both flat and glass in stock. After a few blog posts and a few youtube videos I felt confident to mix it myself. I did some samples and perfected the ratios and found, to my surprise, it worked great! Crisis averted and new solution found. So if you find yourself in a similar situation try this at home, mix flat and gloss, try a few samples and get back to painting in no time!