After buying into all of the rave about chalk paint, and not being that impressed, I decided to give Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint and I had the perfect piece for it! I decided to use the bench that my husband had built. You can check out that post here.
Ok, back to the paint. I bought a sample package that contained small sizes of six different colors. I wasn’t entirely sure what color I wanted to use. I selected Tricycle, Typewriter (black), Kitchen Scale (blue), Mustard Seed gold, Luckette’s Green, Boxwood green (love that color..I will post a link to my china cabinet in the future here). Taking a piece of scrap (the same wood we used for the bench), I painted all of the colors and lived with my sample board in the dining room for a few days. Finally, I decided on the Tricycle (red) and started painting.
Mixing the paint was interesting. I followed the enclosed instructions and mixed the powder with water. At first, the powder just floated on top. But, I mixed and mixed, and then mixed some more. (MMS website has tutorials in which she suggested mixing for five minutes.) After the five minutes were up, it was still a little gritty and pretty thin. When I began painting it was really runny and almost was like a stain. But, the wood took the color nicely. Unfortunately, my little sample got me a little more than half way through.
After receiving another order, I went ahead and finished painting the bench, but did not get a top coat on it. I was debating between Tung oil, wipe on poly and wax. I put a swipe of all three on each color on my sample board to see how it would change the color if at all. I had experience with the wax and loved the sheen on the sample board. But, I didn’t get to it right away.
Before I could get to the top coat, we had company. The boys made use of the bench, adding their touch of greasy fingerprints and dropped food…which didn’t wipe off. That left me needing to sand off the greasy spots, and repaint the entire thing to try and deepen the color. I didn’t make the same mistake twice! Right after finishing, I waxed with clear wax, and added an antiquing wax. I love how the antiquing wax made the color really deepen! Although, I think I’m going to have to add one more coat of wax, because I still get a bit of red when I wipe it down after meals.
I decided I really liked the ease of it…but, you have to be willing to use it up right away, because it doesn’t last like latex. In fact I liked it so much, I just finished another piece for the formal dining room! What do you think? Has anyone else tried Miss Mustard Seeds Milk Paint or any other brands? I would love to hear your experiences!