Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint Dresser in Marzipan

You guys, I FINALLY got up the nerve to paint my Granny’s antique dresser with Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint in Marzipan!

As some of you may know my grandparents passed away last year about 36 hours apart. I can’t even begin to describe how difficult our family’s grief journey has been. And while we’re definitely better this year than we were at this same time last year, I’m realizing more and more, grief never really leaves you.

This chippy dresser was one of the pieces from my Granny’s estate I wanted most because it held such happy memories for me. She used to keep it in her laundry room and as my Granny would be folding laundry she would let me go through all the drawers. Each drawer contained all sorts of fun diy tools and other random bits and bobs she collected over the years.

For the longest time, I couldn’t think about painting or working on the dresser because it reminded me of her so much, it made me weepy. It basically sat in the area between our entry and our living room wearing a mix of two different chippy and peeling paints for a year.

Now that we have our entry almost finished and we have plans to rehab the living room as well, I decided it was finally time to give Granny’s chippy dresser a makeover.

I knew from the beginning I wanted to use Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint on this dresser because it has such a timeless farmhouse feel.

Before I started painting I gave this chippy dresser a thorough cleaning.

I’ll be honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually been nervous about painting a piece of furniture. It’s also been several years since I’ve used Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint (MMSMP), so I headed up to the nearest stockiest for advice.

I knew I wanted to keep some level of chipping, but I didn’t like either of the colors that were on the dresser. The top coat is a creamy mustardy yellow and the coat underneath looks like a mixture of mashed squash and peas. It’s not pretty at all.

I love the texture though so the MMSMP stockiest suggested I use a coat of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint as a primer and binder. Now, normally you don’t have to use a primer or a base coat when working with MMSMP, but I chose to add one, so I could cover up the existing colors.

Even after dry brushing one coat of Annie Sloan Chalk paint in Old White on this dresser, you could see a big difference.

After allowing the coat of Old White to dry for several hours,

I mixed equal parts MMSMP in Marzipan and water. If you’re new to milk paint, you have to make sure the paint powder and water mixture is blended very well. This is such an important step. There should be no lumps!

I painted two coats of Marzipan on the dresser and allowed the paint to dry overnight. The next morning, I lightly sanded the entire dresser with a piece of 220-grit sandpaper.

Then I used a cloth to rub Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint Hemp Oil all over the dresser. On a side note, I wish I would have used a brush to apply the hemp oil because I think it would have been less streaky.

Several hours later, the hemp oil still didn’t look even to me, so I gently sanded the uneven parts again. Using hemp oil to seal is very different from using furniture paste wax so I’ll definitely need to practice using the hemp oil a bit more because I love the beautiful layered finish it created.

At this point, I thought I was finished with the dresser but after looking at the photographs it seemed like something was missing.

I gently distressed the edges and the legs with sandpaper,

and I changed out the hardware on the top drawers. And while that helped, it still needed something else.

So, I decided to add a bit of Old White to bring out the details using a fine art brush.

It’s such a subtle change but it definitely makes a difference…

We have plans to make this wall an accent wall so I’m not sure how I’m going to style this Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint dresser in Marzipan just yet. For now, I’m thinking something slightly equestrian. We’ve found so many fabulous horse trophies lately I haven’t even had a chance to unpack yet!

Once I had finished Granny’s dresser I sent a picture to my Mom. Thankfully, she loved it. And even more important, I think my Granny would approve as well.

See you guys back here tomorrow. We’ll share scenes from our week, a new menu, our free quote printable and all our favorite things from around the web. Until next time, I’ll see you on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.

Many blessings,

CoCo