I realized I totally dropped the ball on our Milk Paint 101 series!  I left you at the first coat and promptly forgot about you. So, you’ve applied the number of coats needed in order to get the finish as opaque as desired.  In most cases, two coats do it.  Sometimes more are required if there is a high contrast between the color you chose and the surface you’re painting. Once everything is dry, this is when I like to distress.  Some people like to apply wax or oil finishes first, then distress, then apply the finish again, while others like to dive right into the distressing.  I fall in the latter camp.  It’s one less step and it uses less product.  The advantage to waxing or oiling first is that it cuts down dramatically on the amount of dust that is produced. If you’re interested in my distressing tips and

Sorry that it’s been over a month since I last posted in the milk paint 101 series!  I like blog series, because they help me focus my writing efforts, but I am still Marian and I still get distracted. So, let’s continue. But first, here are links to the first three parts of this series, in case you missed them… part 1 | what is milk paint? part 2 | how to mix milk paint part 3 | surface prep And now you’ve brushed on your first coat of milk paint and you’re pretty certain you’ve destroyed your piece of furniture.  Because it looks something like this… I’ve talked about the ugly stage before. It’s just a thing with makeovers.  It’s the part of the makeover when you have foil all over your head or when the entire contents of your closet are on your floor. It gets worse before it gets better. The key

Now, you know what milk paint is (part 1), you’ve mixed it for your project (part 2), and now it’s time to get your piece ready to paint.  This is the part that many people are confused about and where many projects go off the rails.  I’ll be honest in saying that I have contributed to that confusion, I’m sure.  In this day and age where no sanding, priming or prep is the trend, there is an assumption that you don’t ever have to prep anything before painting it. So, can you paint a piece without prepping it?  Yes.  You definitely can.  And I have many times, which is how I’ve contributed to the confusion.  But, I’ve painted enough to know which ones need to be prepped before applying milk paint and which ones don’t. And that’s what we’re going to cover today. So, which ones need to be prepped and

In part one of this series, we talked about what milk paint is.   Now, we’re going to get into mixing, which I think is the most intimidating part for most people. First of all, we’re not use to mixing paint, right?  It usually comes in a bottle or can and it’s already a liquid.  Just dip in your brush and go.  I must admit that the convenience of that is nice. The reason milk paint doesn’t come that way, is that it is perishable once it’s mixed, so it’s sold in powdered form. I think some people are nervous about mixing the paint because it is an unknown.  And most of us are a little apprehensive when we stray from what we’re used to.   There’s also an assumption that this needs to be exact or everything will be ruined. So, let me first put you at ease. If you can

I’ve written a lot of posts about milk paint.  In fact, we have an entire blog just dedicated to all things MMS Milk Paint.  I could talk about it a lot more than I do, but I never want my readers to feel like this blog is a milk paint commercial.  But when I asked you what you wanted from my blog, I was surprised to learn that many of you wanted to hear more about milk paint. I mention it a lot, but I realized that it’s almost in passing, so if you don’t know anything about milk paint, me simply saying that I painted something in milk paint, distressed it and applied hemp oil might not mean much.  I’m glossing over the details that would be helpful for someone trying to replicate the looks I’m achieving. So, I’ve decided to write a series to those who are brand new