hi Tina, yes, I'm familiar with regular milk paint; I used it for a number of projects a few years back. Love the stuff! Love that matte chalky tactile finish, too. If one can apply this Sloan chalk paint on top of other finishes, sounds like it's different from milk paint in that it has some kind of latex or acrylic additives. I know they market an acrylic binder that can be added to regular ole milk paint to achieve the same kind of coverage. But that must make it a bit more like a regular paint, and I have to say I'm rather fond of the unique way milk paint can be thinned as desired for that slightly see-through washed wood effect. Great tip on the ammonia as remover, cyn47, thanks! We tried just about everything to get 100-year-old milk paint off our kitchen woodwork in former house; can't recall if we tried ammonia. We finally resorted to a commercial preparation that I thought was more pricey than it was worth. At least we have established a definitive connection between felines and chalk/milk paint. As my contribution towards minimizing general grumpiness, here's a shot of my kitty on one of my old milk-paint projects. Well, at least his ears:

Am finding this interesting as to ease of use and process. May be off topic, but I have always painted old furniture and even did the FP surround with acrylic craft paint. Buy the big bottles on sale, sometimes mix for a specific color wanted. The chalk paint almost looks/reads to be close to acrylic craft paint. Acrylic goes on beautifully and in one coat and goes a long way. I age items with regular stain (Minwax,etc). They have all held up well. I'd love to get the formula for chalk and acrylic craft paint to see a comparison. Enjoying the pics, love to see more of the great results. Amazing how good your projects turn out.

Here is a good article. It starts off talking about stenciling which I'm not going to do, but the second half has some good tips on wash techniques. I plan to practice on the back of the china cabinet and hopefully I'll have the technique down by the time I get to the front. Here is a link that might be useful: Washes

Hmmm... looks like a pine maybe? Definitely want to double prime that stuff. If it pine or fir that is annoying stuff to work because it can bleed into your paint (priming fixes that!) and if staining.....awmigawd give me drink ....bloody stuff blotches into light dark when you stain...... all I can do to fight it to a standstill with my top-of-the-line Bartley Furniture gel stains LOL! Your primer will streak and have brush marks and look like doggy doo doo. Doesn't matter. It is just to seal the wood and will be covered up by the good stuff. If it gets a glop from where it ran and you didn't see it pool up, you can pick it off with a finger nail or stick a metal putty knife in and get it off.. Just smack a brush stroke of more primer on the spot and roll on. OVP is so thick that it kinda self levels if you just put it on and keep your hand going along nice & smooth. I'm not a fuss on brushes. Any medium quality brush will work for overall. Something like this would be fine. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Wooster-2-in-Golden-Glo-Nylon-Polyester-Flat-Brush-0Q31180020/204312575 The artist's brush I mentioned would be great for making sure you get all those grooves. It is so tight the edge is almost knife solid for sliding into grooves (well until you wreck it by using it for yonks on infinite house projects when it was intended for oil painting and have to put a bobby around it after washing to get its shape back) http://www.michaels.com/winsor-and-newton-winton-bright-brush/MD002649S.html#start=5 This listing only shows it up to an 8, a 10 would be better. They should have it in the store even if not on the website. You can go down with the larger brush then take the small one to smooth the paint in the crevices so it (a) goes in or (b) too much isn't there What are you gonna do with the inside of the drawers? Leave them as is? If raw wood put some wipe on stain on them? Paint them? The reason OVP does not make a gray is because they do the original 100% accurate colors of the late 18th century and early 19th century (Georgian-Federal-Regency) and some colonial. (They should know the colors -they were making then 200 years ago!) Gray was not used in much back then. It was considered a color of mourning and too depressing for words. When a close relative (parent, spouse, child) died one wore unrelieved black for a year (full mourning) and then went into 1/2 mourning for another year and wore only grey and then lavender near the end of the 2nd year. So no, people then did not use gray paint in their homes. They used a lot of bright strong reds, yellows, pumpkins, blues of all hues, greens (including a great smoky green) and the earth tones of the ground - creams, browns, tans, beiges and of course 'buff' which is a color that was the color of leather that was processed for breeches and clothing. Black was only occasionally used on shutters of a red house or on iron work. GIve Laney a call - she is a sweetie and will help you. You will do just fine. In fact you are gonna do so good that I'll co-opt you to coming up here (40 miles sugar sand beach and dunes....hmmmm?) and make you help me do the Chinoiserie wall paintings down the long hall.