A Mustard Seed Yellow Washstand
Every Friday, we feature a beautiful Miss Mustard Seed’s® Milk Paint project in our Move Mountains With Milk Paint Facebook Group - a thriving and bustling online community where creative minds come together to inspire, help and encourage one another.
This week’s featured piece comes to us from the talented hands of Eileen Jareo. This sweet washstand was given a cheerful and chippy makeover using Mustard Seed Yellow.
Prepping the Washstand
Here’s how Eileen’s washstand looked when she started:
Photo Credit: Eileen Jareo
This little diamond in the rough was brimming with charm! From the latch closure on the doors to the cup pulls on the drawer, we think it’s cute as a button!
Now when it comes to prep work, we recommend a 2 step process:
Step 1 - Prep Clean
We recommend using equal parts Denatured Alcohol and water for your cleaning solution along with a maroon or green Scotch-Brite pad. The Denatured Alcohol is readily available, inexpensive, doesn’t require extra rinsing and can be followed up with any kind of paint. If you’ve never heard of it before, it’s used to fuel alcohol-burning stoves and to clean windows!
We like to keep our Denatured Alcohol cleaning solution in a plastic spray bottle with a label. Spray your piece down and gently scrub it with the maroon pad. Use a shop towel to wipe it dry. You may need to do a few rounds, depending on how dirty your piece is.
For extra grimy pieces, use a bit of blue Dawn dish detergent and warm water to get rid of grease and oils. If it’s good enough for your dirty dishes, it’s good enough for your dirty furniture!
We don’t recommend using Mineral Spirits because it’s a petroleum-based product that is not compatible with water-based paints. If you use TSP (trisodium phosphate) as your cleaner, make sure you rinse it well to remove any phosphates that may be left behind. After all, the P in TSP stands for phosphate!
Step 2 - Prep Sand
After your piece is clean and dry, use a maroon synthetic steel wool pad, 220-320 sanding pad, or 150 grit sandpaper to scuff sand your piece. You can find these in the paint aisle of your local hardware store.
This scuff sanding does two things - it further cleans your piece and gently roughs up the surface to create texture. This will help your Milk Paint adhere!
Whenever you’re sanding, wear a respirator or mask to protect your lungs. Then, remove the excess dust with a shop vac.
Painting the Washstand
Eileen used Mustard Seed Yellow for her color choice. This happy and sunny shade of yellow has the deep gold tones of tiny mustard seeds and is the namesake of our Founder, Marian Parsons, aka Miss Mustard Seed®.
If you’d like to enjoy more Mustard Seed Yellow inspiration, click the image below to visit our Pinterest Color Inspiration Board.
If you need some help or tips on mixing, check out our blog post on the topic. There’s a great tutorial video that shows you different techniques for mixing too!
After mixing up a batch of Mustard Seed Yellow, Eileen began applying her first coat to her sweet washstand.
Photo Credit: Eileen Jareo
The Chippy Look
Milk Paint is famous for creating “the chippy look”.
Photo Credit: Eileen Jareo
The reason why Milk Paint flakes and chips off in random patches is because it did not adhere in certain spots. This could be due to surface contaminants like oils and grease. It could also be due to the fact that the surface is too slick, and there’s not enough texture or “tooth” for Milk Paint to grab and adhere, so it flakes away.
When this chipping and flaking happens, we think it’s downright charming! We love old pieces, and our Milk Paint creates the most authentically aged finish you’ll ever see!
The chippy characteristic of our Milk Paint is a bit random. When Milk Paint chips, where it chips across a piece and how much it chips is kind of unpredictable. That’s what gives milk painted pieces their authentically aged aesthetic! The chipping patterns aren’t planned and forced, making them look natural and organic.
Eileen loves the chippy look just as much as we do, and she set out to give her washstand the cheeriest chippy finish possible! As her first coat of Mustard Seed Yellow began to dry, she noticed that it was chipping a little too much to her liking. This happens from time to time when you’re going for a chippy look.
Prep cleaning and sanding a piece can control unexpected and unwanted levels of chipping. Other times, it can prevent chipping from occurring altogether. And other times, you can prep and clean properly and still get chipping.
Like we said, creating a chippy finish has some randomness to it, and you’ll need to be flexible when you’re creating this type of effect.
Controlling the Chippiness
We’ve all experienced projects that have chipped a bit too much. The great news is that it’s very easy to adjust! To add a bit more control to her Milk Paint, Eileen expertly added our Bonding Agent into her second coat of Mustard Seed Yellow.
Bonding Agent is an additive that you can squirt into mixed Milk Paint to improve adhesion. It’s an AGENT that helps the paint to BOND to the surface you’re painting, so we call it Bonding Agent.
Get it? :-)
When it comes to adding Bonding Agent into your mixed Milk Paint, we recommend 1-3 squirts. If you measure out equal parts Bonding Agent to paint, we find that it gets a bit runny and thin. A few squirts is all you’ll need! Use 1 for small batches and up to 3 for larger ones.
For more tips on fixing excessively flakey and chippy paint, check out this blog post:
Sealing Extra Chippy and Flakey Milk Paint Projects
We recommend using our Tough Coat to seal extra chippy finishes, and that’s what Eileen did with her washstand!
This water-based topcoat locks chipping paint in place and provides our most durable finish possible.
Tough Coat is great for heavy traffic surfaces like bookshelves and desk tops. We recommend gently swirling your bottle to mix it before use. Apply it with a bristle brush or a foam applicator brush. Try to brush in one direction to avoid the appearance of brush strokes. Simply lay it down, smooth it out, and keep going!
We liken using Tough Coat to painting your nails with a clear coat. If you don’t put much on, and brush, brush, brush, what happens? You get drag marks and a rather unsightly looking manicure! The same goes for applying Tough Coat (or any water-based topcoat for that matter). Get enough on your brush so it flows on easily. Smooth it out and let it be. Over-brushing can lead to brush marks.
Check out our tutorial video that teaches you how to apply all of our beautiful finishes!
The combination of cheery Mustard Seed Yellow Milk Paint and the durability of Tough Coat created a perfectly controlled chippy makeover!
Bravo, Eileen!
