Yes, I have a love affair with paint!
A few months back, I wrote some tips to consider when re-coloring your home in my blog The Walls Have It! Five Tips for Recoloring the Interior of Your Home.
But did you know that repainting furniture can give it new life as well? And with more modern chalk paint, gone are the days of hours of sanding and stripping.
Now, I have transformed more than one piece of furniture in my home with chalk paint. In fact, I developed such a love affair with paint that for a while, after finding myself newly widowed, I ran out of things to paint in my house and operated a small booth at a local antique store where I repainted items, sold them, and got paid!
But gone are those days. I swapped refurbishing and finding vintage items for teaching school and helping others sell real estate. I also discovered along my former journey that I generally HATE to paint furniture - unless it is something I myself am going to enjoy!
Enter, the bench transformation!
But what is chalk paint?
Chalk paint was created by artist Annie Sloan, in 1990. Fine powder, such as plaster of Paris or calcium carbonate, is mixed with water and then an acrylic paint is added as a colorant. The result is a paint that adheres to almost anything, including glass, veneer furniture, and more. The paint does leave a chalky, matte finish, so some sort of wax or topcoat is oftentimes added on top of the paint to give the furniture a smooth polished finish. At other times, the paint is left as is.
So, how did chalk paint help me transform the faded, worn and broken bench from a bicentennial collection of the 1970s into a showpiece without sanding or stripping?
Step #1 - Clean well and fix any broken parts
A lot of how-to guides will tell you to buy expensive solvents and cleaning supplies to clean the piece of dirt.
Cleaning your treasure of dirt is super-uber important, but products like Fantastik, Pine-Sol, or even soap and water do the trick nicely. It IS important to get all of the dirt off, even what is in the cracks. Old toothbrushes and soap and water for loosening touch cracks and corners works well. Paper towels will also pull the muck off.
Give the piece time to dry, which might be overnight, or it might be just an hour or so in the sun.
If necessary, glue the pieces back together, or make any repairs necessary to bring the piece back into its whole.
Step #2 - Paint the piece
That's right - no sanding is necessary. Buy some chalk paint and start painting.
Several brands of chalk paint are available. Two of my favorites . . .
Dixie Belle can be purchased at antique stores from local dealers or even online. The paint provides an awesome, smooth coverage, and there are more colors than you can imagine. They are always coming out with new colors, too. Dixie Belle can be pricey, especially considering you can't buy smaller than a sixteen-ounce container.
Waverly can be purchased at Wal-mart among other places. Not quite providing as smooth a coverage as Dixie Belle, it nonetheless is more than adequate. It has far fewer colors than Dixie Belle, although the colors do include black, brown, and white. It runs about the same price per ounce as Dixie Belle, or perhaps slightly cheaper, but you can buy it in smaller containers.
Other brands are available. Annie Sloan is, of course, the premier, original brand, but I must confess to never using it. I have used Rustoleum chalk paint, especially their spray brands, and have been quite pleased with the coverage. There are also a variety of recipes online for making your own chalk paint, but I have not bothered to do that either, although I know crafters who do make their own because it is much cheaper and more cost effective for them.
Keep in mind, there is also a "milk paint" version of paints, but that is a topic for another day.
"Creativity takes courage." – Henri Matisse
Step #3 - You may need to paint a second coat
I have found that sometimes it is necessary to paint a second coat over the first. This oftentimes depends upon the wood itself. More porous wood will require a second coating. A smooth veneer will almost always require a second coat.
The top layer of chalk paint does dry fast, so depending upon the humidity of the day or the temperature, you oftentimes can almost immediately begin a second coat over the first.
Step #4 - Antique finish, optional
If you want to give your piece an antique, somewhat dirty look, you would do so now. Make sure the piece is completely dry (I generally wait 24 hours.) You would then paint the piece with a clear wax (both Dixie Belle and Waverly have clear waxes).
You want to wait at least 24 hours for the wax to dry thoroughly. Then, you paint an antique wax (I love Waverly's Antique Brown wax for this part) lightly onto the piece. Don't paint to much because you don't want it to dry. While it is still wet, take a rag and rub the wax back off until you get the look you want. (This is why it is important that the first layer of clear wax dry completely.)
For the bench, I decided not to antique. So, I skipped step #4 and went to step #5. (In the picture below, I did brown wax pretty much everything else.)
Step #5 - Apply a top coat, or 2 or 3, or maybe none at all . . .
A final top coat is necessary to give the chalky look a smooth, somewhat shiny finish. It is also important to protect the paint as much as possible. Although, there are plenty of refurbishers that do not apply any coat at all. They just leave the piece as it is.
Both Dixie Belle and Waverly have clear and antique waxes and top coat finishes. Dixie Belle's Gator Hide is especially recommended for furniture that gets a lot of wear and tear or is in a high traffic area of your home.
For my bench, purchased outdoor protective polyurethane and sprayed several coats over the bench. I will probably make doing this a spring project every year just to protect the piece. Outdoor furniture will take a bigger beating with dirt and heat and cold and rain, so it needs more protection than the furniture in your home.
Anyone can transform furniture and their world
Seriously, anyone can do these sorts of projects. If you mess up, you can always repaint again, and you don't have to go through all the hassle of stripping and sanding.
I have given this bench several more long years of life, and it has transformed my front porch into another small liveable space once the heat of summer abates.
Now . . . on to those flower beds I want to enjoy from my front porch. After all, it's my house and my story, and now that the bench chapter is done - I need to move to writing a chapter on the front yard and the flower beds!
Donna Hechler Porter is a real estate agent with Keller Williams Elite Realty in Baytown, Texas. An educator, a published author, and an arm-chair historian, Donna runs a small publishing business in addition to educating people about how to build future wealth through home ownership. Feel free to contact Donna at dhporter@kw.com.