Milk Paint Coffee Table - a lesson in trial and error!

When I last left you I was have some problems with my first attempt at using Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint. I had a
bit of a problem with one side of the table. Basically the paint all fell off. You can read about that here.

So I had to salvage what I had done. And again, since I am lazy, I refused to sand it all off and restart. I paid a visit to Janet at The Empty Nest in Warrenton and chatted with her about my project. We had a nice talk about the pros and cons of milk paint itself. The beauty of milk paint is that if you don't do any prep work the paint will chip and self distress in a pretty unpredictable manner. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to how much chipping you get on which type of finish. You would think, the glossier the finish, the more distressing you would get. But that is not so. So the pro is ALSO the con! She suggested I use some bonding agent on that side. Or start over and use the bonding agent all over. I pretty much pretended I did not hear that second part.

So now the one side of the table had progressed like this: First, a coat of Linen milk paint that produced some mild chipping. Second coat. Both coats of paint entirely fall off (what the...?!), except for 2 small patches. Another very thin coat of paint. ANOTHER coat of Milk Paint with bonding agent added. Ergh. And then I still had to do some very creative spot touch up. And sanding in between.

Anyway. Live and learn! Here is the finished piece.

Ignore the glass table top over there leaning against the couch!
I still need to get Mr. Muscle to take the other coffee table downstairs.

 And I'm not hating that Christmas poinsettia still hanging around. The white was the right way to go.

This photo shows the side that originally fell of completely. It's still a lot more distressed than the rest of the table. All in all I am happy with how it turned out. I love the vintage feel of it. I may still move it up to my master sitting room though. I keep thinking all those drawers would be perfect for housing my insane amount of jewelry!