Meet Morgan from Revivals Furniture Co.
Our Facebook Group, “Move Mountains With Milk Paint” is a bustling online community where creatives and Milk Paint lovers alike share their projects, get answers to questions and are inspired by the work of others.
Every Friday, we feature a project refinished by one of our talented group members. This week, we’d like to introduce you to Morgan Adams of Revivals Furniture Co. in Arlington, Iowa. She began her furniture business when she was just 16 years old and still in high school! Not only does Morgan refinish furniture, she BUILDS it too!
Her story is incredible, and we’re so excited to not only highlight a gorgeous Jacobean-style buffet she refinished recently, but give you a glimpse into her world in the process.
Prep and Repair Work
Before Morgan could begin work on her beautiful walnut buffet, she needed to make lots of repairs. She rebuilt the drawer boxes and built new doors. To keep the charm of the piece, she carefully peeled off the original appliqués and reattached them to the new doors.
Rebuilding new doors is right within Morgan’s wheelhouse because she actually builds her own furniture in addition to refinish existing pieces. (Cool, right?) We’ll show you some of her work further on in this post, but for now, let’s get back to prep work!
We recommend you make any repairs to your projects before you start refinishing them as well. Once repairs are made, and your piece is structurally sound, you need to prep it to accept a new Miss Mustard Seed’s® Milk Paint finish. We’ve written all about prep work, including how to avoid bleed-through, in these blog posts:
Refinishing the Buffet
Once Morgan’s buffet was prepped and repaired, she whipped up a batch of Typewriter. This color is named after and inspired by the soft black metal of antique and vintage typewriters.
Morgan likes to use Miss Mustard Seed’s® Milk Paint on her projects because she wants finishes that don’t contain a lot of chemicals. She also appreciates how our products provide an authentically aged finish, on both new and old pieces!
If you’d like some tips for mixing up a batch of Typewriter (or any of our gorgeous colors) for your next project, click over to this blog post.
After some distressing, Morgan’s results were absolutely gorgeous!
She refinished the top in “Briarsmoke” stain by Varathane to bring out the deep walnut color of the wood. Wasn’t it such a good choice up against the Typewriter Milk Paint?
To seal her piece (top and bottom), Morgan sprayed a clear polyurethane in a Satin finish by Minwax using a paint sprayer. To ensure compatibility, Morgan tested this topcoat before she applied it to her entire piece.
That’s a really good tip that we recommend to you as well. We can’t guarantee, speak to or help with finishes outside our line and how compatible they are with our products. If you venture outside our line, make sure you test your entire project from start to finish on a scrap before doing it on your good piece to ensure you like the results.
Here’s a super fun Tik-Tok video of the refinishing process from Morgan’s account:
Their corn crib home was even featured in the 2021 issue of “Life in Eastern Iowa”. Give it a read and learn more about her fascinating life!
“Have fun and be creative with your space. Don’t work on making a ‘Pinterest perfect’ home. Create a space that works for you and your future goals.” - Morgan Adams
Future Projects
Morgan and her husband have their eye on quite a few future projects. They want to build a house on the farm and a retail space for Morgan’s business. She also wants to restore the farm’s original 1920’s Hoosier cabinet. Morgan says that it’s currently in miserable shape, and she can’t wait to bring it back to life! It will sit in the kitchen of her future house, and we can’t wait to see it when she’s finished.
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