How to use milk paint to 'stain' your table!

Hi there! It's me again!

{Melanie from Mango Reclaimed)

I want to share a quick little 'how to' with you today. Have you tried using milk paint as a stain yet?! Did you even know you could do that?! One of the great things about milk paint is that you mix it yourself with water so you have a lot of versatility in the opacity of the paint you mix up. If you use 1 part milk paint powder and mix it up with 3 parts water . . . . you get a gorgeous stain!

just. like. that.

Ok, so now that you know how to mix it up . . . what will you do with your milk paint stain?

Well for me it seems that almost every other customer of mine has an old oak pedestal table. You know the one - its a honey oak colour, it's solid wood, its got good lines, it fits your space and has worn really well . . . but its ugly!

Here's what I recommend - get out your sander and sand that table top down to some beautiful bare wood:

Next, grab your perfectly mixed up stain - for this table I used 'Curio' which is a rich and beautiful brown . . . and just paint it on.

Yes, it's that easy!

And look . . .

Don't you just love how the stain brings out all the grain in the wood?!?

{Oh, by the way - this table top is currently on top of my studio work table, incase you're wondering what all that awesome and messy looking colour is, lol!}

Now if your feeling even more ambitious you can add another stain on top of this first one! I wanted to soften the look a bit so I mixed up 1 part 'Mora' which is a soft and beautiful grey, with 3 parts water.

And I painted it right on top of the Curio . . .

It looks a bit scary at first, I'll give you that, but stick with it!

Now for this table I used a clean damp rag and rubbed a bunch of the Mora off right after applying it so the look would be really soft.

Once it was dry I gave the whole table a light sand with 400 grit sand paper and then sealed in all the gorgeous new colour with hemp oil.

Take a look at this table finished and in it's new space . . .

The base of this table was painted solid in 'Linen', then mildly distressed and hemp oiled. I didn't want to strip the table base to raw wood so I just roughed it up a bit and made sure to add bonding agent to my paint so I wouldn't get any chipping.

I can't take credit for the kitchen reno - this was done by the talented team over at Square Footage Inc. 

Isn't this kitchen gorgeous??

And that restyled table fits right in! What a great way to keep something old and make it work in a space that's all new!

I hope you found this helpful! Thanks for reading along!