Swedish Yellow New Milk Paint Colour. There are times when we start new furniture projects where we can envision the makeover from start to finish. And other times the vision won't evolve until you actually start working and painting. We loved the beautifully turned legs for this piece and knew we wanted to keep and highlight them somehow. But the rest of the piece had us guessing so we decided to bring a fun colour into the mix. Here is what the piece looked like before:
Below is a list of supplies you’ll need to complete a similar project.
- TSP Alternative + Wiping Cloths
- Homestead House Milk Paint Swedish Yellow
- Fusion Beeswax
- Mixing Cup + Stir Stick
- Fusion Mineral Paint Synthetic Chip Brush
Starting with Milk Paint
When making over your furniture, prepping is a MUST. With Homestead House milk paint, you have some flexibility to skip some steps depending on your desired look. We were hoping for a distressed look so we skipped the sanding part entirely. However, one step you must always complete with furniture refinishing is cleaning. Start by removing your hardware and setting it aside.
The next step is to give your piece a thorough cleaning. We like to use a 1:4 ratio of TSP Alternative to water and mix it into a solution. Putting it into a spray bottle makes for an easier application and you spray as much as necessary without over saturating. Use absorbent wiping cloths to clean the surface and remove grease, dirt and residue.
Swedish Yellow
As your piece is drying, mix up your milk paint using a 1:1 equal parts milk paint powder to room temperature water. Milk paint uses pigments to make up its colour so properly saturating all the milk paint pigments will allow them to break down properly. Give it a good stir, for about a minute. The powder pigments are so fine it doesn’t take long to mix your colour at all. When you are painting we recommend stirring every couple of brushstrokes or so. This helps keep the colour uniform as the heavy pigments can settle to the bottom.
After mixing your Milk Paint you are ready to paint. We used a synthetic chip brush to apply our milk paint in thin coats. You really can use any brush! Milk Paint self-levels very well.
As you can see, the first coat gave us excellent coverage but we wanted to touch it up for a more opaque finish. This is a personal preference depending on the look you are going for.
The second coat gave us exactly the buttery yellow colour we were looking for!
We lightly distressed our piece just to smooth out the surface and add some age. This always brings the wood tones through and gives us some contrast. Then we sealed the entire piece using Fusion Beeswax, which is a hemp oil and beeswax mixture. This finish penetrates your wood and adds a beautiful lustre.
A traditional Swedish Colour
When you finally get to take a step back and look at your piece put back together, you can truly appreciate what a beautiful, buttery colour this is. The deep yellow tone of Southern Swedens rapeseed fields is captured in this milk paint colour called “Swedish Yellow.”
Up close, you truly get to appreciate the muted tone of this colour as the original wood comes through the distressing. Paired with the antique gold handles, you can fully appreciate the golden ochre undertones.
The inspiration for this traditional Swedish colour is southern Sweden’s rapeseed fields and blossoms cover a large part of the landscape. They are bright yellow on a sunny Spring day but muted and with a hint of ochre during the sunset. This colour will make anyone smile!
Beeswax finish
We love using Fusion Beeswax to rehydrate old wood because it gives it a rich, saturated look. It did wonders for these legs that were thirsty for a drink. The beeswax component also adds a soft lustre, and protection. The sheen of Beeswax is slightly more than our furniture waxes.
A fun way to dress up the interiors of your pieces is by using a matching liner. We found this botanical paper to match perfectly and add a fun pop to the drawer.
Swedish Yellow New Milk Paint Colour
We hope you enjoyed this makeover as well as learning about the history of this new colour. Stay tuned for more Swedish-inspired colour projects. You can see all the new colour here. We can’t wait to see Swedish Yellow on your projects!
