Painting over milk paint

The other day I had a request to change the colour on a hutch I had previously painted.  This was the piece that was in the magazine feature, and the customer wanted the exact hutch in a slightly off-white.  Despite our attempts to get her interested in another similar un-painted hutch, she was relentless.  So, I brought it into my garage and got started.

First, I sanded down the whole piece.  Well, not me, but my wonderful husband Mark.  He may have been cursing through the whole process, but I didn't know - that's why it was brought out to the garage!  The whole sanding process took a few hours.  As you can see, there is quite a bit of wood detail on it.

When Mark was done, I carried on my merry way, milk painting the piece as I typically do.  Unfortunately for me, when I was done and I began distressing, every little bit of blue paint that wasn't sanded off, came through.  I think it was because the cabinet was oiled, and the blue was so shiny and slippery, that the milk paint couldn't adhere properly.  So, I landed up taking a tiny little piece of 120 grit paper, and sanding all the little nooks and cranny's where that darned paint showed through.  Very tedious. 

Took me a full day just to do that step, actually.  So when you are re-milk-painting a piece, I'm sorry to say, there's no way around it - you have to sand the ENTIRE project down!  You'll save yourself so much grief if you do!