good one, Den!: Milk paint part deux/Meet Chester

In my last post I said I had another project lined up and ready for round 2 of MMS milk paint.

Meet Chester....

Found him on Craig's list of course, and I couldn't walk away. Such an awesome piece with great curves. The guy I bought him from said his parents bought it used in the 50s....I couldn't find a maker's mark or any other info, but I did search some google images and figured he was probably a 1940s Duncan Phyfe-esque reproduction. Regardless, he is ALL wood, super massive, and VERY sturdy.

And the 2 small drawers are even lined with purple felt, how cool is that?

I was pretty sure I wanted to paint him up in the linen color milk paint I already had on hand. But as you can see from the picture, his top needed some help. So I busted out the new palm sander I got for Christmas and went to work!

Got that guy all the way down to the raw wood. Initially I thought that it was covered in veneer, but I was wrong. Just LOTS, and LOTS of really old stain. Once I got the sanding out of the way I mixed up my milk paint and away I went. Well....more milk paint lessons learned on this guy. The raw wood just LOVED to soak up the paint. After 3 coats it still looked like primer and once again I was bugging out!!

I didn't sand the parts that had detail, and I knew I wanted the wood to show through somewhat. But I wasn't loving how it was going. I didn't snap any other pictures along the way because I just kept adding coats until I thought it looked right. Honestly I lost count after 4 coats, I think I ended up doing 5 or 6 on the top. Then came another moment of panic. I chose the linen paint because I wanted this piece to be neutral. But with all white paint it looked too washed out to me, and totally not my style. So I decided to paint the 2 center drawers in my "custom color" grey chalk paint that I always have on hand.

Once again the milk paint did it's unpredictable thing where it chipped and cracked where it wanted, but it was perfect on this project. I only wanted a little bit of distressing. I didn't want to distress so much that it detracted from the shape and details of the piece itself. When I was done I decided to use dark wax anywhere there was detailing, and clear wax on all the smooth surfaces. I did 2 coats of wax total and gave it a good buffing. Luckily it came with really great vintage hardware that had the perfect amount of patina, so I left those alone and just put em back on when all was said and done. Ready to see how he turned out??