Sprucing Up with Milk Paint!

I recently went through a quarter-life decorating crisis and got tired of all of our old mismatched hand-me-down, yard sale, and dumpster-diving furniture.  So, I set out to do something about it without breaking the bank!  I did some research and came across something called Milk Paint (through the all-mighty-pinterest of course).  I've always been a sucker for chalk paint but haven't been able to really get it to look right (see the photos below of my starting furniture).  Chalk Paint always throws me off because it seems to darken and get weird splotches on it when I use clear furniture wax to seal it, so it never really turns out how I want it to.  Chalk Paint, however, just seemed so promising (and easy)!  So I ordered a bag of mix-your-own Chalk Paint from Miss Mustard Seed on Amazon and anxiously waited for two weeks for it to get here.

The snapshots below are from the "before" shots, with my previous chalk-paint attempt that was supposed to look cream and ended up looking like a drab grey-brown.  Ugh. 

BEFORE:

Don't judge too hard... for some reason I thought I could just brush on some white chalk paint and antiquing wax over the weird grey and make everything look better.  All I can say is... you live and you learn!

My new bestie!

So, I wiped down the furniture with a damp towel, mixed up the Milk Paint according to the instructions, and brushed it on!  I mixed it so that it would be a little opaque and tried to do pretty heavy-handed brush strokes to give it more of a weathered barn-wood look.  

The great thing about Milk Paint is that you take a damp rag and gently go over the areas that you want to look weathered... no messy colored waxes, other paints, etc.  SO EASY!  I did have to seal it all with a clear wax though but unlike Chalk Paint, I didn't notice any change in colors or oily-looking splotches.

AFTER:

I was able to paint over the hardware and wipe the paint off with a damp cloth on most of my furniture, which saves SO MUCH time!

And in one evening, voila!  Furniture that coordinates!