Milk Paint Marathon (with a graphic of course!)

This project has been an absolute marathon - it was a commission - the only brief being - "Just do what you do" and a request for distressed & shabby chic!
Well what I love to do, if you hadn't already noticed is put a graphic on my pieces - this project was an old 1930's oak sideboard an an oak refectory table and lent itself beautifully to some vintage typography.
I chose 2 colours, as the sideboard was R-E-A-L-L-Y BIG! and I thought 2 colours would break things up a bit and give some definition on the decorative bits, so I went for  Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint - Shutter Gray & Grain Sack. - a winning combination of grays.
I decided not to use any Bonding Agent as I wanted to let this piece distress as much as possible - well the guy did ask for distressed & shabby chic!
As the original surface was very shiny - particularly the top of the sideboard, I sanded the top right back to the bare wood - it was a gorgeous thick chunky oak top so I knew it would sand well, and made the perfect surface for a Graphics Fairy graphic, to tie the 2 pieces together I decided to put the full version of the graphic on the table top, and just the main title on the sideboard.

 

I finished both the top on the sideboard and the table top with Danish Oil, as this is hard wearing and will protect the wooden surfaces from heat and and spillages.

 

This is what the sideboard looked like before:

 Close up of the detail

 Here is the finished table top, I really like this graphic, I like the variety of different fonts, and it has a real vintage feel about it.
Here's a close up of the chipping on the legs/base of the table, it really looks authentic. Milk Paint is such a great product to achieve this look without having to sand back to the bear wood, which always looks a little un-natural to me

This what the base looked like prior to painting:

I was very pleased with the end result.  As these 2 pieces are so large, I did have difficulty in getting good photos, and they don't really show them off as I would have liked, the oak on both pieces is really substantial and they are in fact both the same colour although the pictures don't show it, s they are such large pieces of furniture I had to photograph them in different locations - hence the light makes the colours look different.
I think my next milk paint project is going to be somewhat smaller!
Bye for now
CJ