How to Lighten Up a Space

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A surefire way for how to lighten up a space is to paint any existing furniture that’s dark, a light colour! It’s always an incredible change.

Hotel Robe Milk Paint by Fusion

This bench was the perfect candidate! For this project, we went with “Hotel Robe” Fusion Milk Paint, our brightest white in the milk paint by Fusion range.

How to mix Milk Paint

This 2-minute video explains how to mix Milk Paint by Fusion.

1 Part water to 1 part Milk Paint powder. Give it a little whisk for a minute. It’s always important to continuously stir as the pigments are heavy and will settle to the bottom, and hint- the pigments that settle are what give you the paint coverage! The water stays at the top, so mix it up!

With lighter colours, your first coat will be slightly transparent. You will most likely need 3-4 coats to get fully opaque coverage. If you want to cheat you could always add a higher ratio of powder, however, you don’t want to thicken your milk paint too much because it could drag when painting with it creating texture, and brush strokes and could also crack when it dries- alternatively, if you want those looks, then thicken that baby up!

Your milk paint should have a table cream consistency.

Milk Paint on raw wood

Bare wood surfaces need no prep and no primer. Simply clean off any dust or dirt and paint! The milk paint is going to soak in and just hold onto those wood fibres – never to chip or peel! That’s right, on porous surfaces you will never get peeling, chipping or flaking as the milk paint literally soaks into the wood fibres and cements themselves. If you have a previously painted surface or finished piece, some prep may be necessary. Refer to our Prep Guide here.

Prep for this piece was just making sure it was dust free, and then painted with our Staalmeester natural bristle brush.

This took 3 coats for full coverage. Each coat takes about 20-30 minutes to dry, then you can re-coat as desired. It didn’t take long as the first 2 coats soaked into the wood really quickly, approx 20 minutes.

Milk Paint requires a top coat, we decided to go with the Stain and Finishing Oil in White, whilst we wouldn’t typically recommend an Oil Based top coat over top of white (because oils typically yellow slightly) we were going for a bit of a rustic look, and the white pigment in the Stain and Finishing Oil should prevent too much yellowing.