When you’re considering just how to finish that awesome thrift store find, milk paint is probably near the top of your top coat list thanks to its lovely matte finish and ease of use. Equally well suited to raw wood and painted furniture, milk paint durability is legendary, with the medium being one of the oldest ways our ancestors finished their furnishings. Keep in mind, however, that while porous paint products like milk paint retain beauty over time and allow easy cleaning, they require a proper top coat sealer to keep out water, dirt, and other contaminants. Fortunately, there are several simple ways how to seal milk paint furniture properly so it maintains its integrity, even with frequent use.
How to Seal Milk Paint with Wax
Furniture wax for wood offers a wide range of benefits when you’re deciding how to seal milk paint on DIY project pieces, and products from the Real Milk Paint Co. confer numerous advantages when painting furniture and other home decor. Formulated with natural ingredients such as walnut oil, carnauba wax and beeswax, our buttery soft furniture wax products deliver durability and enable easy touch-ups.
Colored furniture waxes such as Myland’s Wax and Soft Wax also make it easy to customize your DIY projects and ensure your painted finish blends well with other home decor. If you want to maintain the pure color of your milk paint, we recommend using our carnauba wax to finish your project. Likewise, we carry a crackle finish and a medium that adds a chippy paint look, both of which transform our clear, tinted and dark wax products into antiquing wax, making it quick and convenient to distress furnishings without lots of sanding. Additionally, softer wax works especially well when you have lots of surface area to cover, such as when you’re adding a top coat after painting bathroom or kitchen cabinets. Many of our furniture wax options also work on surfaces other than painted and raw wood for creative flexibility.
When sealing milk paint with waxes, the process is fairly simple. First, dust off the surface to remove any unwanted grit. Then use a lint-free cloth or wax brush to apply wax with a smooth, even rubbing motion. Keep in mind that it’s easier to add more wax after applying with a very light hand than to buff out surfaces after using too much wax. After application, use another lint-free rag to buff the waxed surface of the milk-painted furniture and remove excess wax. Keep in mind that if you’re using a tinted wax for your wax finish, you may want to use clear wax first as a resist to prevent your Real Milk Paint color from changing.
How to Seal Milk Paint with Oil
Wood finish oils by the Real Milk Paint Co. like Pure Tung Oil and Hemp Oil help you seal milk paint when you want to make your surface safe for food contact or water resistant. Our nontoxic oils deliver a durable finish, contain no VOCs and penetrate deeply into raw wood and recently milk painted pieces alike for versatility in use. Additionally, we offer Outdoor Defense Oil — a combination of Pure Tung Oil, Pine Oil and Zinc that helps you achieve superior protection on outdoor painted furniture used on your porch, deck or patio. Before using a finishing oil over milk paint, ensure that the material below the milk paint is raw wood, concrete, or another kind of porous material. If another type of finish or paint is present below the milk paint other sealing products would be better to use.
Though you can use our Pure tung oil and Dark Tung Oil straight out of the container to cover stained wood and milk-painted furniture, these products penetrate better when mixed 1:1 with our Citrus Solvent. We also carry Half and Half and Dark Half formulations — featuring Pure Tung Oil and Dark Tung Oil respectively — premixed with Citrus Solvent for extra convenience when painting cabinets, performing furniture makeovers or trying to get the most milk paint durability for frequently used surfaces. It’s worth noting that Hemp Oil doesn’t require any thinning when being used over milk paint or raw wood.
When you’re looking for ways to seal milk paint and plan to use hemp oil or tung oil as your top coat, keep in mind that it needs to cure for maximum durability. The process of sealing milk paint with finishing oils, however, is simple but requires multiple applications to achieve optimal saturation. Simply rub the oil and solvent combination you chose onto the porous paint surface with a lint-free rag or brush.
Next, let the oil absorb into the milk paint furniture project, then repeat the application process again. Repeat the steps as many times as necessary until the surface doesn’t absorb any more oil. Once you reach the point of oversaturation, simply wipe away the excess oil and let your DIY milk paint project begin the curing process — 7 to 15 days to be dry to the touch and 30 days for complete curing.
How to Seal Milk Paint with Glazes and Creams
Water-based finishing products such as glazes and creams by the Real Milk Paint Co. provide a washable finish that stays put. Perfect for use as a top coat on a freshly painted finish or stained wood, these creams and glazes help you antique pieces like a coffee table or kitchen table quickly and conveniently. These formulations provide soft finish results, whether you want a dead flat, matte or satin finish from your furniture sealant, and they clean up easily for fuss-free use.
Like our waxes, our finishing creams and glazes come in a variety of hues and tones for hassle-free DIY project customization. Choose clear options for lighter woods or pieces you don’t wish to distress or weather, and select darker colors to add a patina of age to tabletops and other furnishings. Additionally, these finishing products convey hard-wearing protection in high-traffic spaces, making them ideal for use in kitchens and bathrooms.
To apply finishing creams and glazes, simply clean surfaces to remove contaminants, then apply the product you select with a lint-free cloth or rag. After application, these mediums dry to the touch within 30 to 60 minutes and completely within 24 hours. You can paint over our creams and glazes with Real Milk Paint, and you can also use them as a barrier coat when antiquing and distressing painted furniture.
When you’re considering ways to seal milk paint for your personal or professional projects, the Real Milk Paint Co. has you covered with mediums and tools that make finishing furnishings quick, simple and fun.
