I’ve inherited a few pieces of unique antique furniture from my grandmother that didn’t quite look right in our home, but yet I loved these pieces anyway. After doing a little digging into furniture restorations, I discovered how easy it was to paint furniture with chalk paint. By the way, chalk paint is in no way related to chalkboard paint…. I didn’t know either.
The most popular form of chalk paint is the Annie Sloan paint. I think its around $35 for a quart or something like that. Plus, you either have to order it online or find a special retailer who carries it. I didn’t have the time or patience for either, so I did some research and discovered it is SUPER EASY AND CHEAP to make your own. Here is how:
For enough paint needed to cover a small piece of furniture (like the one below) you will need
1/3 cup of Plaster of Paris
1/3 cup of Water
1 cup of Paint
Stir Stick
Mixing Bucket
*I used a spray polyurethane to finish the piece off and give it a glossy finish.
Also, a sample of Valspar Paint at Lowe’s is just 0.5 oz less than a cup, this size worked perfectly and was less than $3! The color that I used was Valspar’s Homestead Resort Jefferson White.
Here is the piece that I refinished.
This tier table was my grandparent’s and they have probably had it since … goodness… 1930 maybe. According to my mom, it has always been in their home. My grandmother liked to have her houseplants sit on this table so it endured quite a bit of water damage over the years. It was definitely time to update this little table!
I taped up the metal feet in order to keep the paint off. I thought having the silver show would add a fun touch to the finished piece.
Here goes nothing!
Even my sweet golden, Lily, got in on the fun.
Alas, the first coat of paint was successfully applied and then a bird pooped right smack dab on the center of the table!
No worries, it came off super easy and just in case, I repainted the entire top section one more time.
The paint dried really fast so it only took about twenty minutes or so of waiting in between coats. I probably could have gotten away with just one coat of paint on this, but due to the large amount of water damage it needed two.
Once the paint was dry, I sprayed the poly on. Polyurethane helps to lock in the paint and also gives it that glossy look that a finished piece of furniture has. The poly dried in less than an hour so it was time to bring the updated tier table back inside the house.
I’m pretty please with how it turned out, and it took only about three hours to do the whole thing, from start to finish.
I may have created a monster, because I’m itching to go out and get some more paint and have at it on some other pieces in my home.
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