When it comes to painting a piece of furniture to look aged, my go to method is using milk paint. It has such an authentic, beautiful finish. So many people are intimidated by using milk paint. Don’t be.
I just finished this piece that is in my kids’ playroom. We use it as a dress up closet. This room is the one of the first rooms you see when you walk into my house. I needed to add some touches to make it a little more sophisticated and a little less giant colorful legos and board games. (They are all still in there, just concealed a little better.)
This is the closet before. It was pretty, I just wanted to spice it up.
I chose to use Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Luckett’s Green. You can get it here: Milk Paint
Milk paint comes as a powder. You mix it with warm water. I follow the instructions on the box and then usually end up thickening it a bit by adding more milk paint powder. Mix it well and don’t panic-it will be a bit lumpy. Let it sit for about 10-15 minutes, and then mix it again.
This is the first coat. It goes on very thin. Let it dry for about an hour.
This is after the second coat of milk paint. I applied clear wax once the piece was totally dry.
Ok, here’s the cool part about milk paint. It will begin to distress itself. See how parts of it flaked off? Those are all random distressed spots. I did not encourage it to flake, it simply does it on it’s own.
If you get to a point where you feel it has distressed enough and you don’t want any more to come off, you can stop any additional flaking with something like Minwax Polycrylic (you can find it here.) Simply brush on a light coat directly over the milk paint!
Here is the finished product. I love how it pairs with the white kiddie table!
On a side-note, today is free shipping all day from anything at Southern Nest (just use the code FREESHIP at checkout.) How cute is this picture? One of my favorite customers sent me a photo of the painted cotton wreaths we sent her. They are even cuter when they are in a pair! (You can find them here: cotton wreath.)
