Milk Paint Furniture Upcycle

4 Materials
$40.00
2 Hours
Easy

I had one of those armoires that we all seemed to have in the 90's, you know the ones we could hide our televisions in. You can still find these at garage sales and on Craig's list. You can see more of my crafts and creations here.

My armoire was black, you can find a lot of them that are wood grained, but for this project you would want a solid wood, not one that only has a wood veneer. This really was such an easy project, if you are afraid of diving into painting an old piece of furniture, don’t put it off, it wasn’t as scary as I thought! I began by taking off the hardware. I thought I would have to take the doors off, but my husband told me he didn’t think so. We dove in! General Finishes does recommend using a 50/50 mix of denatured alcohol and water to clean your furniture before you paint it; and then a wet scotch brite pad with the mix and scrub the wood surface. This process will remove any dirt and grime.

I began by hand sanding the armoire with 220 grit sandpaper. I just did a light sanding to knock off the shiny surface. I did not de-glaze the surface first.  

Here you can see the difference on the parts of the armoire I had finished sanding versus the one door I had not yet touched. After the entire piece was sanded, I cleaned it well with a clean damp cloth and let it dry before beginning to paint.

The painting began and I can’t tell you how thrilled I was with the color and the “look” the milk paint gave to my old armoire!  

This closeup shows the finish as it is looking after one coat of paint. This is the look I was going for, so I didn’t even add another coat of the milk paint, I just kept going to finish the armoire.

Here she is…all painted and ready for wax! The next step was protecting it with three coats of Johnson Paste Wax. I let it dry completely between coats of wax and buffed it with a nice clean dry cloth between coats

New knobs, of course. These antique-looking white ones were the perfect final addition. This close up picture also shows some of the detail of the finish with the single coat of milk paint. Of course if you want a more solid color finish, an additional coat would give that to you.  

Here is is finished and adding a whole new look to our master bedroom. Even though we do have a flat panel television, this armoire hides it well and adds additional storage to the room, too! I would love to have you stop by my blog,   Celebrate & Decorate for the full tutorial as well as sign up for my latest creations, posts, recipes, exclusives, and more...

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3 of 5 questions
  • Larry miller Larry miller on Jul 30, 2018

    Ever heard of a tack cloth, to be used after any sanding, cheap and effective???

  • Donna Donna on Aug 11, 2018

    It would be helpful to know the brand of paint you used, as well as the color. Also where you found the cute white knobs.

    Great job!

  • Gigi Weber Hansen Gigi Weber Hansen on May 03, 2019

    How many quarts of paint did you need for this project? Did you also paint the inside? Getting ready to tackle an almost identical armoire.

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  • Pat Pat on Aug 15, 2018

    You made this sound easy! Thanks for the motivation. I have been wanting to try this!

  • Stacey Stacey on Sep 06, 2018

    I had no desire to paint my armoire, which was a part of a bedroom suit that I had purchased 13 years ago, until seeing this post! Thanks for sharing, and making this project appear easy enough for me to tackle!

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