How to Paint with Milk Paint | For Beginners

Hey guys! This week I painted these vintage nightstands that we got from a thrift store and here's what they looked like before I painted them. They honestly were in pretty decent shape but the bottoms were chipped a little bit with the veneer so I filled the chipped veneer in before moving on with anything else and I'll link that video of fixing the chipped veneer in the description below. After the veneer was fixed I prepped the rest of the nightstands for paint. First I removed the hardware and then I filled in the bottom drawers holes because I did not want to put the old hardware back on. You can check out the link in the description for the best way to fill holes in drawers. Seriously this is the best way. Then I cleaned them really really well with crud cutter to get all of the gunk off of them. It's really really important to clean off your furniture before painting because paint can't stick to all of the gunk and these nightstands were no exception. Actually they were worse than most pieces of furniture so I made sure to clean them really really well. After I scrubbed all the gunk off I went back and cleaned it again with a nice clean rag just to make sure that everything was off. So for this project we're using powdered milk paint and my favorite brand of milk paint is Shacto interiors milk paint but most powdered milk paint brands work pretty much the same. Just mix one part milk paint powder to one part water but don't mix up your whole bag of milk paint powder because once it's mixed up its shelf life is only a day or two. I use the colors Norton's Point Green and Black Beach to create a deep moody olive green for these nightstands. So first I mixed the two colors together in powder form using a ratio of three parts Norton's Point Green to one part Black Beach. After they were mixed together well I added the same amount of water to the powder. I think I ended up using about three fourths cup of powder so I mixed in about three fourths cup of water. Then I put the lid on the container and I shook it up really really good for a minute or two and then I just let the mixture sit for about 10 to 15 minutes before I actually used it. If you let it sit for the 10 to 15 minutes then it will start to thicken up a little bit but it will also dissolve that powder into the water more making it a really nice paint consistency. Just a side note though General Finishes milk paint and Rust-Oleum milk paint is not the same as this powdered milk paint. It can be really really confusing when you're starting out but any milk paint that is already in a liquid form won't work the same as this powdered milk paint. While I waited for the milk paint to be ready I sanded the nightstands just a little bit and I used my favorite little sander the Surf Prep sander. This little guy is perfect for scuff sanding before painting because you can attach these foam pads to them that makes it possible to get into most of the details without blowing through the detail like regular sanders would do. Before I had this handy sander though I always scuffed sanded by hand so if you're just painting one or two pieces for yourself I would just lightly sand everything down by hand with a 220 grit sandpaper. Sanding is super super super important when using milk paint especially if you don't want the milk paint to chip very much. If you don't scuff sand before painting with milk paint you'll likely get a lot of chipping which might be exactly what you're going for or it might not be what you want at all. Scuff sanding is basically just sanding the finish down just a little bit to make the old finish dull instead of shiny. You don't want to sand through the finish you just want to scuff it up a bit so the paint has something to hold on to. If the old finish is too shiny or slick then the paint won't have anything to hold on to and it will just chip all off. After everything was scuff sanded really well I used my shop vac to suck up the leftover dust and then I used a tack cloth to pick up the little bit of dust that was left over. These tack cloths are so good at picking up any remaining dust and I love them so much. Next I brushed on a coat of poly over the areas that I had repaired. Typically with other paint I don't use water-based poly for this but I've learned that water-based poly is the perfect thing to seal in the wood filler or the bondo or whatever you use so then the paint doesn't chip over the repaired areas. Seriously for some reason milk paint loves to chip over any of these repaired areas so if you have any wood filler of any kind on your furniture be sure to seal it with water-based poly before painting with milk paint. Other products like clear shellac that I usually use at this point in a project will make the milk paint crackle which will show the wood filler below which is not what we want. I used my absolute favorite paintbrush to on the milk paint. This round brush from zebra is the absolute best plus it's really affordable. Since it's round it's so much easier to paint edges and details on furniture. Seriously if you've only painted with a flat paintbrush try using this round brush and you will be so amazed at how well it paints any surface that isn't flat and it's even more amazing on spindles. When I brush on milk paint I make sure to go back over the just painted areas with really long brush strokes to even out any variations in color. You don't notice them as much when the paint is wet but once the paint dries it typically can have a decent amount of variations in the color which is one reason I love this paint but it's also something to make sure to keep an eye on. I also keep an eye out for any paint drips that might happen because I put too much paint on in one area so I go back and double check that it's not too thick and if I see a drip starting in an area I use a paintbrush to quickly brush it out and spread the paint out just a little bit better. For the drawers I was really careful to make sure I didn't get paint anywhere except for on the drawer front and then I painted a little bit inside of the nightstands where the drawers sit. Since these drawers are inset drawers you'll be able to see just a little bit of these areas when the drawers are in and I don't want them to not have paint on them. After the nightstands were painted on all four sides I let the milk paint dry for a couple of hours until it was completely dry. I also wrapped my paintbrush in some plastic wrap to keep it from drying out and so I didn't have to wash it out between coats. After the nightstands were dry I painted a second coat on them. Most paint requires at least two coats of paint. Thankfully this paint only required two coats and nothing more. I did have to mix up a little bit more paint so I made sure to mix it up before starting the second coat so I wouldn't have too much variation in the color between the first batch and the second batch especially because I mixed two colors together but also because milk paint has so much variation to it. After the second coat was on I let it dry again for a couple of hours until it was completely dry. When the paint was dry I grabbed my surf prep sander to distress the paint but also to make the paint smooth. I used the medium plus half inch foam sanding pad from surf prep but if I was sanding by hand I would have sanded with a 220 grit piece of sandpaper. I sanded everywhere knocking off the gritty texture of the paint to make it smooth but I also sanded the edges to sand off the paint a little bit to show the wood underneath. A couple of areas chipped just a little bit but for the most part since we sanded before painting the milk paint stuck really well and only distressed it on the edges when we sanded it. Then I used my shop vac to suck up the dust and a tack cloth to pick up any remaining dust. Then I sealed my milk paint with this real milk paint wax. I typically stick to water-based poly to seal all of my furniture but I used this real milk paint wax on another piece painted with milk paint and I loved how easy it was to use. I just used the wax brush to brush the wax all over. With wax I like to go back over the fresh wax and brush in long strokes that go in the same direction just to make sure that the wax doesn't leave streaks going in all different directions. After I waxed both night sands I went back with a lint-free rag and rubbed the excess wax off. At first it felt sticky but the more I rubbed the wax or buffed it the wax got more smooth and it looked a little bit less matte. Then I finished these nightstands off with these new knobs. Here's what these nightstands look like now. I love the deep olive green with a little bit of chipping and distressing just enough to make them perfect for farmhouse style. If you thought this video was helpful please hit that like button and subscribe to our channel.