Chalk Paint Project

After my last post, some of you asked for me to do a post about my furniture upcycling project whenever I was finished. Well, I'm finally finished!

Here is the before and after and I couldn't be more pleased with myself or how it turned out.

I found lots of pictures on Pinterest of this old Thomasville French Provencial china cabinet...like the exact same one that I bought...and it gave me lots of ideas for what I wanted to do with mine.

I ended up using the Annie Sloan chalk paint...I used French Linen and Old White...straight up, no mixing colors. I didn't distress or use dark wax either...just a coat of clear wax buffed up real nice and shiny.

One thing that I did and I'm glad that I did it is taking off the doors up top. I wasn't sure if I'd feel like it looked naked, but I think it modernized the piece without taking away all of the character. Also, I replaced the pulls with knobs! I LOVE knobs! The above pic is missing two of them because I bought out Hobby Lobby and they had to order more. I tried to place a special order for two knobs and they looked at me like I was crazy. But I was kind of nervous that they wouldn't get anymore and I'd be short. Rest assured, they came in and I bought them and I don't have a drawer that's missing knobs. 

Not a great photo above...but I wanted one of the entire room and this is the only light in the whole room so it had to be on. You can see that my dining room table is a dark wood finish and I wanted a different color than brown for the new piece, since so much of our furniture is brown. Brown dining table...brown leather sectional...brown bookcase...brown sofa table...brown entertainment center...brown end tables...ok, you get the point. I think the neutral colors I picked complement the room great by adding some interest and contrast while not competing for attention or being too loud.

Also...all of this is just my opinion...I don't have a design background or even all that much confidence in my taste, so if you're looking at this like, "girl...get a clue", you might be right. 

I took a bunch of pictures of my progress so I could keep track of things and send updates to my mom...although I wasn't all that great about sending the updates real time. I thought it was super fun to take everything apart...we got a new power drill that has a cord (so it NEVER dies! Woohoo!) 

 My husband was a little nervous after the first coat dried that it was going to need like 12 coats...but he's one of those painters that tries achieve full coverage in one coat. Don't even get me started. This is what one coat is supposed to look like.

It ended up taking 2 coats of the French Linen and 3 coats of the Old White. I loved every minute of the painting. I thought it was so fun to see the transformation. Oh I also bought the Annie Sloan paint brush and wax brush because I wanted to make sure that I didn't screw it up. I figured as a rookie, I needed all the help I could get. 

 I didn't take photos of it, but I ended up filling the holes in the drawers and drilling new ones for the knobs. I like pulls but I couldn't find any that I liked and I think knobs are wonderful. So I needed new holes that were more spaced apart.

Y'all...waxing was seriously a work out. And I read all these things that said that the wax makes it "come alive" so I was kind of expecting some spectacular show.  Well I didn't have such a revealing time with my wax. It definitely makes the piece feel finished...if you don't wax the chalk paint, it scratches if you look at it wrong and it feels rough and chalky. You definitely have to wax but it's like, not that exciting. I also watched a tutorial video that put all kinds of fear in me about using too much wax. So I spent an evening waxing this bottom piece only to go out the next day and realize I had done absolutely nothing besides rub a slightly greasy brush all over my still chalky chalk paint.

So I'd say the waxing step took me the longest because it just wasn't all that fun for me. It made me feel like, ok...I really don't want to do this to every piece of furniture in my house. It just didn't provide the initial transformation that the paint gave (which was fun and exciting) and it took some elbow grease, which I was kind of not in the mood for at 9:30pm, which was usually the time I was working on it. 

When the waxing was done, I did love putting the piece back together...reconnecting the doors, bringing it inside and stacking the pieces on top in their final resting spot...yeah, that's good for the soul.

I've spent a little bit of time putting some of my favorite things on the shelves and let me tell you, there is an art to decorating one of these. My rules...which are in no way founded in anything other then my own personal opinion is to stay balanced (which honestly is very unlike me...I am a sucker for asymmetry), stick with neutrals, show off your favorite things and put as much breakable stuff as possible on the higher shelves. Also...go to Home Goods to find some fun fillers.

Also...that lamp doesn't go there. My three-year-old just thinks that we're moving all of the things over to this part of the room now. :)

So after it was all said and done...my sweet and supportive husband was all..."You could totally sell this for a couple grand. How about you do this to make some dolla' bills?"

Stay tuned...

ha...just kidding!