Metal Milk Painted Cart in Pink

Milk paint has this wonderful ability to keep you humble…

Just when you think you have it mastered, it will jump out and do precisely the opposite of what you expect! The good news is that whatever happens, the colors are delicious.

I’ve long wanted to experiment with Old Fashioned Milk Paint on metal and choose to redo this vintage typing cart. I wanted a “been in the garage for 30 years” effect…didn’t want it to look shiny and new and I thought this rusty top would poke through paint beautifully.
metal milk painted pink before in all its rusty glory

Just to be extra sure the paint would chip away over the rust, I used my new Daddy Van’s Beeswax puck over the rusty spots and along an edge or two on the legs that also had some corrosion.

Daddy Vans beeswax puck

I was envisioning a cart that had been painted in the 50’s sometime. I didn’t do all the undersides and purposely did a bit of a slapdash job. I mixed mostly Snow White with a smidge of Salem Red to get a very soft pink.

I did two coats and waited…and nothing happened. I tried a little bit of sanding to see if I could encourage a chip. I succeeded in getting some leftover dark paint dust from my sanding sponge on to the texture but no chips.

Sometimes it has to be applied thick before it starts to go nuts chipping.  It was feeling not quite pink enough, so I added in a little more red and did a third coat and waited…

I even used a hairdryer on both the top and underside of the metal and put it outside in the sun hoping that the metal expanding would gimme SOMETHING.

I got a little crazing and one small chip.  Sometimes you just gotta let Milk Paint do its own damn thing and get out of the way! Evidently this cart just wants to be PINK.  I expect that given time, the rust will start poking out on its own.

Daddy Van's decorative wax cafe noir on pink OFMP

I got out the Daddy Van’s Cafe Noir wax and added some “dirt” on to the finish.

metal milk painted pink roses and birdies and vintage matte glaze vase

I am really not a Pink Person. I think most of us look at a sweet ballerina pink like this and imagine it needs to be styled all girly and sweet with roses and little birdies. While certainly you CAN do that, I wanted to try it out in other more modern ways.

metal milk painted pink sunset tillandasia and kilim

Looks great with any variety of sunset paintings you might find in a second hand store!

metal milk painted pink with Luon St Pierre angel

Here it is gone a little funky with my favorite Junkyard Angel and vintage teal toolbox.  I would love to see it all dressed up as a bar cart with brass utensils and sparkly glass too!

How would you style a pink cart? Leave a comment below!

ofmp metal cart pink

8 thoughts on “Metal Milk Painted Cart in Pink”

  1. I’m not a pink person either, but I really like your cart, Jenni! Especially paired with the teal. 😀 You’re so right …. we just gotta let milk paint do it’s thing, which is really hard sometimes! Take care, Cynthia

  2. I know what you mean about the OFMP doing its own thing. But that is the beauty and interesting thing about it. Whatever it does it really gave the old typing desk a brand new life. It does look good now.

  3. This is lovely! I just painted a rusty metal patio table using milk paint and I had the same experience. No chipping or flaking, not one bit! Milk paint is a beautiful mystery.

  4. It happened to you too? So weird! I half expect this to rust through sometime soon. Not selling it quite yet to see what happens!

  5. Pink is so in right now they are calling it “millennial pink…” sigh. I have some other metal items I want to colorfy too!

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