Milk Painted Entry Way Furniture- “Boho Beauty”

Hey guys! I so excited to tell y’all all about my favorite piece I’ve done to date! My boho beauty!!! My sweet friend Connie from Renaissance Lady sent me an UHMAZING box filled with some goodies I had yet to try (and some candy…. literally the nicest person I know)! Real Milk paint in one of my favorite colors PLUS several bottles of unicorn spit (notice she sent two identical sets…hint, hint for a giveaway)! Connie is seriously the best and so full of knowledge about the products she sells. I had a little Queen Ann lowboy buffet that had been sitting in my garage for months. I decided to bring it in and give it some love. I gave it a quick scuff sanding and cleaned with LA’s Totally Awesome cleaner *affiliate link(seriously cuts through grime like magic).

Working with the milk paint was very interesting! It comes packaged in a plastic container that opens to reveal a powder sealed in a bag and a little marble.

The great thing about milk paint is you can just mix up what you need and then seal powder in the bag until you want to mix up some more. It was very pigmented and I absolutely love how bright the aqua was. Now to be honest, it comes with great directions on how much water to powder ratio to use….but I’m never great at following instructions (or recipes) and usually, just kinda, make it up as I go along!!! Maybe it’s the creative in me, who knows?! Anyway after playing around with adding more water and powder until I got the consistency I felt was good, I added the marble to the jar and just spent a good amount of time shaking it around. I let it sit for a bit because there were some bubbles when I opened the lid. The paint went on quit nicely in thicknesses and had a different texture than I’m used to feeling. I went across the entire top in long sweeps and could tell it was thicker in some areas than others but I wasn’t going for an even coverage. I used my favorite brush (*affiliate link) from heirloom traditions and it made quick work of the whole piece. Once that coat dried well overnight I wanted to distress, well one swoop of sandpaper was way tooo much for the milk paint so I resorted to using a wad of tissue paper to give me the look I wanted.

The milk paint is very easy to remove at this point and the tissue paper gave me just the right amount of pressure. Some of the thinner lines popped through more and it gave the paint a smoother texture to touch.

I decided to use blue and green unicorn spit to blend over the milk paint. I started with a few drops and a very wet brush (I used a cheap chip brush for this part).

I would dip one side in the yellow and the other in blue then dot the brush strategically around the buffet.

Then I would wet my brush, shake off the excess, and go back over the dots blending them in and stretching them out. It gave the loveliest effect over top of the milk paint and added so much depth.

I used this technique throughout the whole buffet and did a few touch up spots here and there. The milk paint held up very well to the damp brush and had very little wipe away. I think I used less than a teaspoon of each color  too y’all!!! This stuff really goes the distance, especially when it comes in contact with water!

Once the spit dried overnight I went back over everything with some sandpaper to give it a nice distressed and chippy look, I loved the contrast of the dark wood grain and the bright aqua. The milk paint is so dimensional too that it gave it such a nice effect.

Meanwhile, mid process of this, I received a box from Iron Orchid Designs filled to the brim of amazing transfers and stamps. I fell absolutely in love with the boho border and knew it would be incredible paired with the aqua milk paint on the Buffett.

I watched a few videos on how to properly use the transfers and chatted with my friend Jan from Flipped Furniture of Kentucky who gave me some more great pointers. Jan is amazing with transfers and has a great how-to video HERE. I was nervous to mess up the transfer but you guys it’s SO easy! You just rub, rub, rub!

I decided to pull the drawers out and stack them all together to give the illusion of one big drawer and cut the border to length for each drawer. This gave a nice illusion to the drawers. Don’t worry if your transfer has little chips coming off or pieces that don’t stick. This helps give it a more authentic look and ties in the paint underneath with the piece as a whole.

I did STRUGGLE trying to find the right hardware for this piece. The original hardware was lovely but it didn’t flow well with the transfer. After a few different tries and some conversations with Derrick from D Lawless Hardware (Cannot recommend them enough!!!)  I decided to go with these lovely pulls .  I did a fun little boho black stencil design on the drawer sides to give it a little surprise pop.

I used a spray polyurethane to seal the entire piece. I kept this beauty proudly in my living room for a while and was pretty heartbroken when it sold. Always will be the one that got away 💕