The Free Dresser That We Transformed

This paint was gifted to me by Rustoleum. But the opinions are solely my own.

I’ve been dying to share this little DIY project with you guys. In the name of the game, we’ve been trying to update our home for free. Yep, you heard it, FREE. We found this free dresser from a friend and took it home. We didn’t realize until we got home that the base was so badly chewed by a dog. It was basically unsalvageable. Trust me, we tried.

So, we decided to blindly rip the base off, not knowing if it would fully ruin the piece. I was quite nervous because at that point, I had full painted it. But guess what? It worked and we replaced it with a basic 1X6 for a more modern look.

Here’s how the dresser looked pre-paint. It actually had really nice bones, minus the base that we sanded for over an hour and it just wouldn’t “blend”.

For this job Rust-Oleum gifted me this Milk Paint to use on my project & I’m going to give you a full rundown on what I thought of this specific paint.

I’ve used quite a few different brands of milk paint, so I feel I have a good gauge on what I’m talking about

Firstly, what is “Milk Paint?” Milk paint is a nontoxic water-based paint. It can be made from milk and lime, generally with pigments added for color. … Milk Paint is commonly sold in the powder form, which is a combination of casein and lime.

To be quite honest with you, I’m not sure if Rust-Oleum has another agent in their paint, but it didn’t crackle away like all the other brands I’ve used have done. Which made me a bit sad, because I love that look. One of the positives about this paint is it has extremely good coverage. It will cover any surface. This dresser had a gloss on it prior to painting it, and it covered it with ease. I even used it on the handles, and I only had to do two coats.

The directions on the container are super straight forward and you can use the actual container to paint out of & mix in. Super easy peasy and it made literally no mess whatsoever.

Here’s how our dresser turned out after the second coat was completed. I did give it a a little sand and distressed it. I found this paint distresses really easily and it didn’t leave scratch marks for a more authentic distressed look.

Overall I would give this paint a B. The only reason I give it a B is because I was expecting it to crackle like most other milk paints I’ve used. If it was labelled a chalk paint, I would give it an A+