A Mustard Empire Dresser in Milk Paint

Hello! I’ve got a mustard beauty to share with you today. I bought this empire dresser off of craigslist a while back thanks to a tip from Christina of Phoenix Resoration. I love empire style pieces, and knew yellow was the right color for this piece.

I did my usual prep of sanding the pieces down. The top was really scratched and has random spills on it, but using the electric sander took off the previous, thick coat of sealer which helped get rid of all of those marks. Once sanded, vacuumed and wiped down, I sealed it with a coat of Zinsser Shellac. I bought a can of it and just sprayed the whole dresser down with the drawers in place. This was to stop any bleed through and make sure my paint went on more evenly. Also, for some reason I’ve found that shellac actually seems to help milk paint stick. That’s the opposite of what I’ve always assumed (since it’s shiny and seems like it would cause chipping with milk paint), but if the piece does chip after being coated in shellac, it is light and very small chips, which is what I got on this dresser. I did use some bonding agent, but just a small amount.

This piece took 3 coats of mustard milk paint. The color I used is Sweet Pickins Milk Paint in Curry, which is the same as OFMP’s Mustard. I’ve used it before and just really love the shade of yellow it is. Once it was dry I sealed the piece with General Finishes high performance poly in Flat. Just a tip, if you seal milk paint (the real stuff that comes in powder form), I would recommend a flat poly. Milk paint is very absorbent and in my experience, satin or gloss poly can leave an uneven, streaky finish depending on how the paint soaks it up. With flat poly, it has very little sheen, so you won’t get a streaky finish. I also added some white knobs that have a gold little pattern on the front. I tried a couple sets of hardware, but white is really the only color that I liked with mustard.