It’s time for a good old fashioned dresser before & after here at Miss Mustard Seed.  We all loves those, right?  This was a piece I did for the Lucketts fair a couple of weeks ago… Here’s how it looked before.  Just a ho-hum dresser…     It needed a lot of repair to the drawers, which was the biggest task.  Once those were fixed, I stripped the top of the dresser to refinish the natural wood and lightly sanded the base to prep it for painting.  From the moment I bought this dresser, I envisioned it being Mustard Seed Yellow.  Beyond that, I wasn’t sure.  I just let the piece develop as I worked on it…which is usually how I work on pieces.     I highlighted the details with white acrylic paint and added little green knobs from Hobby Lobby for a little pop of color.  To me,

A common question I’ve been getting lately is, “Can you paint milk paint over other painted finishes?”   Yes, you can!   This little dresser has been hanging around in my basement for a while and, after selling some other pieces, I was forced to work on it.  The delay wasn’t because I didn’t like the piece, but because the drawer bottoms were jacked up and needed to be replaced.  Pieces that need repair often get put on the back burner.  I couldn’t find a before picture of this piece, so here’s the best I could do…   …a snapshot from the Removing Paint Part One video.  It had a few layers of paint, the last one being a white oil based paint that had yellowed and cracked over time.  I removed the paint off the top and painted the base in Mustard Seed Yellow with some bonding agent added,

I got a call a few days ago from Lucketts  It’s a great call, but an “oh crap” kind of call, too.  Both of my large furniture pieces had sold, so I needed to get some furniture into my space ASAP.  I decided to sell a little wash stand I’ve had for a few years and I finally started working on the empire dresser I had in my basement for a while.  Here’s how it turned out…  Here’s the before…   The wood on the front was really beautiful, but the sides had been painted, so I didn’t feel a lot of remorse about painting this piece.  (Do I ever?)  I layered French Enamel over Flow Blue and used a bit of trickery between to get some clear definition between the coats.                   Can you tell I’m a little in love with

Here it is…   This is the piece I’ve been walking you through as I paint and finish it.  You can check out the first post about painting it HERE and the second post about distressing and waxing it HERE.  I purchased this wardrobe from an antique furniture store and it was beautiful to begin with, but it felt very dark and heavy.  The wood was also not in the greatest condition, so I didn’t feel too bad about painting it.  This one is an oldie.  It was originally a wardrobe that would easily break down into flat parts, so it could be moved in the days before we had U-Hauls at the ready.  Someone glued/screwed it all together at some point, though.   This is the fireplace surround that was my inspiration for the finish… Mary and her husband painted it in Tricycle, followed by Typewriter and lastly Shutter