Layla’s Mint Milk Paint Dresser { Furniture Makeover }

It’s the third day of our spring break, and the sun is finally out here in Texas! It’s been two week solid of gloomy, cold weather–and I am over it! The bad news though is that we have two ill members of our household, so our spring break has been pretty low key.

I have been working hard over the past 5 days on stripping wallpaper off of my upstairs guest bath (which has been a beating!) and adding to my Fusion Mineral Paint display at ACM, as well as finishing up a few furniture projects.

With the sun out today I was finally able to take some photos of this second oak dresser I just finished for my friend.  Remember these two?

The dresser on the right I finished a few weeks ago–it was painted in MMS Apron Strings, and you can see it’s full makeover here.

After that post went up a friend contacted me and said she wanted to go ahead and purchase the dresser on the left and have me make it over as a custom project for her.  My friend is a fellow DIY’er and junker, and I had a hard time charging her for a makeover I knew she could accomplish on her own . . . But she so sweetly said to me, “No, I want a “Melanie” dresser!”  It meant a lot 🙂

So, my original plan was to refinish the top and paint the base in MMS Milk Paint Dried Lavender, but that color wouldn’t work for my friend’s space.  Upon my suggestion, she decided to go with a new MMS Milk Paint color, Layla’s Mint– a soft, muted, minty green.  I am always excited to try new paint colors!

This dresser was significantly older than the first oak dresser and needed some minor repair work on a few of it’s drawers.  The oak was also very dry and a little chipped in places, but overall the piece was still very sturdy.

So the makeover was standard . . . sand down the top, paint the base, add a topcoat–you all know the drill by now!  Because the wood was so old and dry though, I had a very hard time getting all of the original stain out of the oak grain.

Once the base was painted though, I decided that the partially raw oak top looked amazing with the Layla’s Mint.  So rather than trying to strip it more and stain it a whole new color, I just applied a coat of MMS Hemp Oil to it and called it a day.

My new Fusion brush is awesome for applying the Hemp Oil!  And look at how it brings back the richness to that wood.

So Hemp Oil to the top, two coats of milk paint, and a hand-painted floral design turned the dry oak dresser into this:

I painted the flowers by hand (sketching the design with chalk before hand), using an off-white acrylic paint, then once dry gave the whole piece a light sanding with fine grit sandpaper.

The milk paint didn’t have any big areas of obvious chipping, I believe because the wood was so dry is soaked right in.  But the light sanding roughed up the finish just enough to keep it from looking freshly-painted.

And have you noticed those handles? They were original to the piece and are by far the most unique hardware pulls I have ever seen.

The face on the backplate and the face on the center of the pull . . . kinda creepy but oh so cool at the same time!

Here’s another shot of that beautiful wood! I’m generally not an oak fan, but old oak like this that is rich with age is just gorgeous.

I was so in love with this little dresser that I told my friend I might have to give her money back and keep it for myself 🙂  She didn’t agree, but did say I could visit it in her house whenever I like.

I hope you enjoyed it as well, there will be more furniture makeovers coming soon using my new Fusion Mineral Paint!

And if you have been anxious to try some Fusion, my online store is about 90% ready to be open! I have a big stock order coming in this Friday and early next week, so hopefully by the end of next week I will be ready to sell and ship Fusion paint online.

Of course one lucky person gets to go ahead and try some Fusion now!  The winner of the 2 testers and Fusion Brush Soap giveaway is Jill B. Be on the lookout for an email from me Jill to get your address and color choices!

Thanks so much to all who entered, and remember that I have another giveaway going on now, $40 credit to The Lonely Book Junkie on Etsy.  Cynthia’s lovely store filled with antique books was my March featured Etsy shop, and the giveaway for her shop credit is open until Friday at midnight.  Good luck!
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