Adventures in Chalk Paint

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The great chalk paint debacle. I originally was so excited to purchase the Annie Sloan chalk paint and go to town on various items in my house. But alas... her starter kit would have run me at least $150. It's a little bit (completely out of) my price range. So I scoured the internet to find the best DIY chalk paint I could. The winner? The following combination that I found here:

  • 2 Tablespoons Plaster of Paris
  • 2 Tablespoons powdered Calcium Carbonate (order from Amazon)
  • 2 Tablespoons Water
  • Then add that mixture to 2 cups of latex paint.

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This is what it looks like all mixed up... no lumps or chunks. I just used a home depot bucket with a lid since storing it airtight is super important.

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Remember this sort of before picture? 20140122-072839.jpg This was the target. This $30 thrift store dresser that I posted about here, but also who's drawers looked like this after I removed the old handles, wood filled them, and sanded some of the green off, but before I started slathering them with chalk paint: 20140127-071824.jpg

As a reminder, for the wood top I stripped, sanded, stained (with Minwax in Espresso), and sealed with Poly. Oh, and about that drawer on the bottom right that was nonexistant, LB cut the plywood out of the bottom and took the old drawer front to create a false front and attach it to the front of the dresser using wood glue and a nail, so that we could hide the subwoofer from the TV. If you look really closely in the last picture, you can see the sub on the ground/behind the false front.

Here she is after one coat of chalk paint. I ended up doing 2 coats since I wanted a more polished finish than the typical rustic look you get with chalk paint. I also have discovered that going from dark to light colors (in my case, a weird green to white) is not super easy with chalk paint. Going light to dark would/will be a snap. 20140127-071808.jpg

A closer in shot of the dresser/TV stand after two coats. 20140127-071844.jpg

The step I forgot to take a picture of was the wax sealing! After being done with two coats of chalk paint, you must seal it with wax. I used SC Johnson clear paste wax (about $6 from home depot) and it worked great. I've been told this is the one to use for white chalk paint since it doesn't yellow.

A few drawer pulls from Home Depot, and here she is in all her TV stand/storage console glory:

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