Creating Chippy Vintage Doors - with 'Ironstone' Milk Paint

I found these pretty ornate wardrobe doors a couple of weeks ago at Ardingly Antiques Fair, as soon as I spotted  them I thought they would be perfect to hang on the wall, but first I would need to make them look chippy and old! What better way to create 'the look' than with Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint - I chose the colour Ironstone, which is a true white, although I would need to make them look like they were painted years ago.

When using the white shades it's always best to apply a coat of a medium shade of milk paint as a base coat, white paint always takes a lot of coats to cover a dark pre-finished wood like this, but if the white is applied on top of a darker colour coat of Milk Paint  it will only need one or two coats.  I wanted the effect to be chippy and old, so I used the colour 'Trophy' (no bonding) as my base coat as I wanted to have this peeping through the Ironstone in some places, this gorgeous steely grey colour is a perfect base coat for the look I wanted.

 

I applied two coats of 'Trophy' and then applied a little 'Hemp Oil' on a few random places to create a 'resist' for the 'Ironstone' milk paint which I applied straight away whilst the 'Hemp Oil' was still wet.

I applied 2 coats of 'Ironstone' 

After the 2nd coat of 'Ironstone' was dry I gently sanded with fine sandpaper and found all the places where I had applied the 'Hemp Oil' and rubbed any residue of the dried paint away - leaving the exposed coat of Trophy underneath.

If I get a build up of dried paint in the crevices I use a stiff bristle brush which smooths it out without leaving clumps of paint in these areas.

Just one quick coat of Antiquing Wax - which I always apply with a brush in small areas and then buff off after 5 minutes. 

I'm really pleased with the transformation the doors have turned out exactly how I had imagined them - I can use them single or double depending where I want to hang them - in fact there are quite a few places I can put them, so I will have some fun playing around with them.

I will definitely be on the look out for some more doors I really love them as a wall decoration.

CJ