General Finishes Milk Paint Review: Driftwood Gray Table

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A few weeks ago I mentioned that I would be painting a side table for my mom.  Now that I’ve had a small break between film shoots, it’s finally done!

This is my first time trying out General Finishes milk paint, and I’m really enjoying it.

General Finishes Milk Paint Prep Work is Minimal

First, what drew me to milk paints is they’re low VOC, forgiving with brush strokes, and best of all they require no primer before painting. Yup, you can skip priming!

When preparing an item for painting with milk paint, all you have to do is scuff the piece with sandpaper to get better adherence, clean off the dust, and begin painting! I have a whole post with step-by-step for how to prep furniture to paint, including using wood filler and how to get clean, straight lines.

Another great quality about milk paint is it adheres well to just about any kind of surface: wood, metal, plastic, stone, and brick.

General Finishes Milk Paint Creates Custom Colors

What makes me very excited and a huge fan of General Finishes milk paint as compared to Miss Mustard Seed’s beautiful powdered milk paints is you get to skip the mixing and measuring of the powdered paint that had to happen for Miss Mustard Seed’s: a huge benefit for me. However, I’ve also noticed after trying several colors now of GF that unless you are using an antiquing wax or glaze as a finish versus hemp seed oil, the color will remain the same as it was out of the can; quite different from the transformation and amount of play you have with MMS when hemp oil is applied.

However, GF offers an amazing range of beautiful colors that you can use straight from the can, OR if you want to have something in a custom shade from what they offer, the beauty of GF paints is that they are all mixable. For example, mix a little Lamp Black with their Lime Green and get a dark forest green. Or Lime Green with Coastal Blue with a “dash” of Lamp Black, and you get a pretty Shamrock green.  You can get a completely custom color with little effort.

General Finishes Milk Paint Lasts & Looks Great

A very little bit of paint can go a long ways with the great coverage of GF milk paint. It will take me quite awhile to work through even a small pint size of paint.

Other benefits: GF dried as fast as MMS (about 30-60 minutes between coats) and it takes the standard 2 coats for full coverage, and was just as great with hiding paintbrush strokes.

For the table that I painted, I used the color Driftwood by General Finish’s milk paint line.  It’s a nice versatile mid-tone gray that comes more from the blue family rather than brown-grays. It was an easy transformation and I love the new look of this table!

Overall I think having MMS and GF as choices is the best of both worlds and I’ll likely be continuing to use each of them.

Any of you have specific preferences?

Check out my easy furniture painting tutorials, starting with How to Prep Furniture for Painting, how to make Distressed Furniture, and how to Paint an Antique Glaze on furniture.

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