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Furniture Makeovers

Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint

MMS Milk Paint is in Australia & New Zealand!

Those of you who have followed my blog for a couple of years know what an amazing journey my Milk Paint line has been.  There was a time when I whispered a desire to have a product line, making sure I highlighted the absurdity of the idea lest people think I’m serious and laugh at me.  Well, I was serious and when the opportunity came to put a paint I love under my own brand, I jumped at it…really having no idea what it entailed.  My idea to pack the paint in my basement became silly when retailers wanting to carry my paint sent me e-mails in droves.  Since those early days, we’ve grown to over 230 retailers around the world.  The world!  It still blows my mind. My dad made a joke a couple of weeks ago about Mustard Seed Interiors going international.  I smiled at him.  “It is

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FURNITURE FEATURE FRIDAY |

I’m sorry for the technical trouble we’ve been having with the Furniture Feature Friday thumbnails.  We’re looking into it, but don’t have it fixed, yet.  Hopefully tonight will work!  Fingers crossed.  Anyway, these are my favorites from last week… I love the color of the frame of this chair and the pretty tailored slipcover by Twin Fibers.  The pillow and layered curtains are so cute as well! What girl wouldn’t love ballet slipper laces crisscrossed down the gilded Frenchy legs of a stool?  I think this slipcover by Decor to Adore is feminine perfection. Would you believe this iron chair was a $5.00 thrift store find by Anita of Cedar Hill Farmhouse?  The seats were missing, but that’s an easy fix.  The shape and chipping paint are so beautiful and perfect for the porch. Here are the rules for our furniture get-together… 1.) Your post has to be about furniture.

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Hand Painted Furniture

Antiquing & Waxing Video Tutorial

I had a chance to finish the footboard and rails of the “Bavarian” style bed I’ve been working on for our guest bedroom.  You can check out part 1 and part 2 to see how the bed got to this stage.  I’m excited to get it set up in the guest room and take some pictures of it in natural lighting, but here are some I snapped in the workshop.  And to show you the process I used on this piece, Jeff and I made an antiquing wax tutorial… Jeff was a busy guy today.  Not only did he make the video, but he made great progress on the trim in the family room… Tonight all of the boys were at Awana, so that’s my night to get a few extra hours of work in (or sometimes just enjoy a movie and a quiet house).  Tonight, I filled and primed

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Guest Room

Painted Guest Room Bed |

The weather has been amazing over the weekend!  Just a couple of sunny days in the 40’s and 50’s and I’m ready to throw open the windows and go out for a hike.  There’s still a lot of snow on the ground, though, so I had to settle for a walk instead of a hike.  It’s given me the shot of energy I need to finish home and work projects.  I was moving furniture around and cleaning out closets.  That’s what warmer temperatures and sunshine does for me, so I’m ready for Spring.  Bring it. So, here’s where we left the bed yesterday.  It’s fully painted, but the paint looks pretty bright and a little flat…definitely not like it was painted a couple hundred years ago like the inspiration bed. It’s the distressing and antiquing that’s going to bring this piece to life.  For distressing, I didn’t want to take

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Hand Painted Furniture

Painted Guest Room Bed |

 Remember the guest bed I bought a few months ago?  My mom and I found it at an antique store for $100.  It needed a bit of gluing, but only on the decorative parts.  The bed is very solid…  …and I was totally in love with the curved footboard. Since 2002, I’ve been holding onto a magazine with a picture of this bed in it…  I’ve always wanted to replicate it if I ever found the right bed.  I knew I could paint the $100 bed in a similar fashion to finally have my own version of the bed in the magazine for my guest room. I started out by painting it in one coat of MMSMP French Enamel with the Bonding Agent added. Once the French Enamel was dry I started to add the other colors…Apron Strings, Mustard Seed Yellow and Linen. It was a little scary at first,

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Kitchen

painting the last bar stool…finally

Back in June of 2013 I painted the bar stools at my kitchen counter…well, two of them, anyway.  I don’t recall why I didn’t get to the third one, but I’m sure I just got busy with other things and the idea of painting one bar stool seemed a bit boring.  You can see the stools peeking up over the bar in this picture… I was getting the itch to paint some furniture and finish projects that have been abandoned, so I finally got the chair done.  I wanted it to match the other two, obviously, so I painted it in French Enamel. In my photo shoots, I use vintage brushes, ironstone mugs, silver spoons and grain sack fabric as drop cloths, but in reality, I use plastic cups and wooden stir sticks and real drop cloths. A nice thing about milk paint is that you can use it inside

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FURNITURE FEATURE FRIDAY |

I enjoyed looking at all of your projects that were linked up last week and I actually got to do some furniture painting myself today!  I know I painted a stool just last week, but I painted a few pieces today and it felt good.  I’ll share those projects later…tonight it’s about FFF and these were my picks from last week. I love this boy’s bedroom by Dixie Delights.  The room is classic, but playful and I love the side by side twin beds with the brass lights.  I wish I had enough space for a setup like that! This dining room by Divine Theatre is absolutely gorgeous!  Can you get over that chandelier and the French daybed/bench under the window?  I couldn’t help but feature it. Lastly, Meg of Oliver & Rust made this simple plate rack for her kitchen.  I immediately turned around to Jeff and told him

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Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint

Talking about color…

I get a lot of questions about the milk paint colors in my line.  There are only 18 of them, but it can still be hard to tell online if a color is the color that’s perfect for your project. Is Typewriter black or charcoal or blue? Is Shutter Gray more blue or more gray?   Is Mustard Seed Yellow too mustardy?  Or not enough? So, I’ve added some new collages (for most colors) and descriptions to the MMSMP website.  And Jeff and I just made this video of me describing the colors in the line to help clear things up even further… Pastel-ish?  (Man, I really needed a haircut before that video.  I got one last week, but I’m a little shaggy in this one.  Oh well!) Do you notice my grain sack apron?  Ann of On Sutton Place made it for me to wear in my photos and

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I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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May 20th, 2026 at 1pm EST

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