China Cabinet Makeover with Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint

This post has been a long time coming.  After all of the Christmas festivities, I made it a goal for the New Year to paint this 80's looking oak china cabinet we've had in our living room for the past three years.  It was time for a much needed paint makeover.  I didn't want to do a latex paint and have it look really glossy.  I wanted it to look like I spent a lot of money on it and wanted to make a statement with this piece.  This china cabinet has some really good bones, is made from solid wood, and has really beautiful antique brass glass leaded windows and shelves.  After some research I came across this stuff called milk paint.  Milk paint is normally known for having that chippy look, I knew I didn't want the chippy look on this china cabinet. I saw pictures of milk paint where it was smooth, not chippy, and it looked gorgeous.  So that's when I decided to use Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint to do the job. 

Here's the before and after pictures.  I used Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in Typewriter for the exterior and Trophy for the interior.  The first coat of paint, I mix in the bonding agent so it would stick to the wood.  The great thing about milk paint is that you don't have to do any prep work like sanding or priming the wood before you paint, just add the bonding agent to the paint, and ta da!  After three coats of paint, I applied two coats of hemp oil, and one coat of furniture wax to give it extra protection because I don't want to ever paint this piece of furniture every again!

The only thing I switched out was the knobs.  I got these Gatehouse antique brass knobs and really like how they're simple, classic, affordable, and have a black ring in the middle that goes really well with black color.  One of the things I really liked using the milk paint, is that it has the most beautiful finish.  It has a matte finish, but as you add coats of hemp oil and furniture wax, it gives it more lustre and the wax really brings out the wood grain, which looks absolutely gorgeous with the dark color.  It gives it some texture to the piece which makes it look really interesting and chic looking.

The white china I have is the perfect contrasting color against the grey and black.

I love opening up the door and seeing a different color, I feel like it gives the china cabinet so much more depth and character.

Here's the rest of my white china, I love the way it looks, it makes me so happy!

I took some of my blue and white china pieces from my kitchen and put them on top of the cabinet.  I think it gives the cabinet such an elegant look, which is what I was really going for in the room.

Next week I'm going to dive into the nitty gritty about how to work with milk paint, the pros, the cons, what worked and didn't work for me, questions to ask yourself about whether or not milk paint is the best option for your next project, and tips that Marian the creator of Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint gave me.

*Disclosure: Miss Mustard Seed generously gave me milk paint products in exchange for posting about how I used them on my china cabinet makeover.  All opinions are 100% mine.