Sunday, December 30, 2012

Giving new, yet still old!, life with Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint

I had been hunting for a good piece to try Miss Mustard's Seed Milk Paint on.  Milk paint is, to the best of my knowledge, the oldest form of paint and has been around for centuries, if not longer.  The beloved painted pieces in my house from the late 1800's/early 1900's are a product of milk paint.  I have painted furniture here and there on my own, but knowing that milk paint is what people used way back when, I wanted to try it for myself and give an old piece a makeover with tools of its own time.  I was just waiting on that perfect piece...


As I rounded the corner at a flea market, I found just the right piece of furniture...



I love the narrow width and I am a sucker for layers of paint, especially if one of those just happens to be green.


I had this bench pegged for my daughter-in-law's entryway.  But, as much as I love all of that crumbly, old paint, it needed to become "kid-friendly", and let's face it, a bit of a makeover.

So, out came my trusty old putty knife, pliers, and paint brush to see how I could restore some life into this great bench.

After scraping some, I decided to pull the tacks out of what I thought was the cushion.  As I pulled back the second layer of upholstery, I found that the cushion was in fact filled with pine needles, which is a great validation of its vintage.



I scraped just enough to get the fragile layers of paint off, but not hard enough to take all of the paint off.  The front was definitely left with the least amount of paint, but the sides were able to keep a good amount.




After a couple of layers of the Miss Mustard's Seed Milk Paint, here is the final product - and I LOVE it!  I did use the bonding agent with the first layer to help it adhere a little better.  At first I was concerned that it wouldn't chip like I had wanted it too.  But, after the second layer, and some light scraping work from the old putty knife, I got the exposed layers like I wanted, and what is so true to the essence of milk paint.


I love that the paint stuck to the top layer of white and that the original green showed through.  We all have layers, so I appreciate when I can see them, even in furniture.





Miss Mustard's Seed Milk Paint really worked well.  It was easy to use and I love the color (I used Luckett's green).

I will definitely be using this again.  I have my eye on the Flow Blue color.  Just have to find the right piece...  and the hunt begins!





No comments:

Post a Comment