Experience: How We Discover What We Love
Experience has a way of teaching us what no opinion ever can.
Ask a group of furniture flippers what the best paint is, and you may get more opinions than there are people in the room.
I don't think there's anything wrong with having a favorite. I certainly have mine. But there's a difference between learning from someone else's experience and allowing their preferences to become yours before you've had a chance to develop your own.
That's why we're beginning the paint-family portion of The Furniture Artist's Resource Guide with true milk paint.
Prefer to listen? Hit play below.
Old Fashioned Milk Paint is unlike most paints you may have sitting in your workshop. It comes as a powder, you mix it yourself, and you can adjust that mixture depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
There's a bit of a learning curve, but that's part of the fun. You learn what the paint can do by actually using it.
Years ago, I used Old Fashioned Milk Paint on a jewelry armoire I inherited from my mom. I layered yellow and orange, mixed the paint thicker than recommended, added transfers, ran into a problem with the sealer—and figured out how to fix it.
The finished piece, which I named Nancy after my favorite aunt, turned out better than I could have imagined. I wouldn't change a thing.
That's experience.
We can read directions and ask other furniture artists what they like, but eventually we have to pick up the brush and discover things for ourselves.
Your favorite paint may eventually become your furniture-flipping version of a favorite song. That's wonderful.
Just don't stop listening to new songs.
You might discover another gem.
→ See Nancy's complete makeover:
Jewelry Armoire Update – OFMP & Modern Masters to the Rescue!
→ Want a place to keep learning and experimenting?
Thanks for visiting. If you need me I'll be in my workshop,
