Vintage Style Ikea Step Stool Makeover
After my Milk Paint 101 class last week I had some leftover Ikea step stools sitting in my garage. These little step stools are a great project to get your feet wet with trying new painting techniques, especially using Sweet Pickins Milk Paint. I was inspired to try my hand at an authentically chippy, paint layered, vintage style step stool using clear wax as a resist.
Here’s my inspiration piece.
This step stool sits on my front porch and is perfectly imperfect. I just love the layered, peeling paint and the color combo of green, pale creamy yellow and gray.
Here’s what I started with. Not exactly exciting!
I started by painting a thin base coat of Sweet Pickins Milk Paint In a Pickle. You can see that I didn’t worry too much about coverage. I knew that I was going to sand this piece to reveal all the layers of paint so leaving the paint thinner in some areas would just make things easier in the long run.
The next thing I did was use some clear wax to create a resist. Basically, I just took some of the wax on a rag and randomly rubbed/globbed the wax into the green paint. I didn’t do it all over, just in random areas.
The next layer of Sweet Pickins Milk Paint I used was Butter. See how it resists where I put the wax? That is going to make distressing this step stool really easy.
I added a little more wax and then mixed up Sweet Pickins Milk Paint in Galvanized with a touch of Ol’ Blue and a little bit of Lantern. This gave me the deeper blueish gray that I was going for. Don’t be afraid to mix colors to get the look you are going for. You can see how the milk paint resisted over the wax and even got a little chippy. To finish this off, I sanded and distressed the step stool with 180 grit sandpaper. Then I applied a coat of clear wax all over and some antiquing dust to give it a little more age. You can see that technique here.
Here is the original step stool again.
Here is my Vintage Style Ikea Step stool.
I love the way it turned out and I am definitely going to use the resist with clear wax technique again. If you liked the way this project turned out I’d love for you to share it. See those little share buttons below? Just click your fav and ta da!
