How to Use Milk Paint on Furniture

by Natalie

4 Materials

$100

2 Days

Easy

Milk paint is a special type of paint that has been around for hundreds of years.

It comes in a powdered form, and you just mix it with water.

One of the great things about milk paint is that it creates an old looking paint finish super easily!

It also can easily chip and crack for a chippy farmhouse finish!

Here is how to paint furniture in milk paint!

This is how the dresser looked like before paint.

I removed the hardware and any of the details that were removable!

Then I filled in the old hardware holes so I could replace the hardware with knobs instead of handles.

I also sanded the top of the dresser down for a wood finished top.

Then I mixed up the paint using a one to one ratio of paint to water. It needs to be mixed up really well and then sit for about 15 minutes to start to thicken before you paint. So I mixed it up before prepping the dresser for paint.

After a quick prep of cleaning and very little scuff sanding (I wanted the paint to chip a little bit here and there), I painted the black milk paint onto the dresser. I gave it two coats of paint.

See the super quick video of how this dresser came together here.

When the paint was dry (it dries very quickly!), I sanded the paint with 400 grit sandpaper just to make it feel smoother and try to get the paint to chip a bit. This step is totally optional!

Then I cleaned off the dust and sealed the milk paint with hemp oil.

Milk paint has to be sealed as it is a very porous paint. You can seal it with hemp oil, wax, or even poly. My favorite is hemp oil with milk paint.