In our home, most of our furniture has been handed down to us, or previously loved. Most of our furniture, I love. Some of our furniture… I don’t love so much. A few pieces we have, I walk past them on a daily basis and want to change them in some way… make it more fitting for our home. If you’re on a budget like us, one of the best and easiest ways to give furniture a facelift is paint — and chalkpaint if you want to skip the sanding and stripping part. Which leads me to our kitchen table…
This table was really well loved by its previous family. It has little drawings underneath from the little kiddos that had their meals and played around this table as they grew up. I bought this table because it was in our budget, came with two leaves and eight chairs so I could host our family dinners and I knew one day I would fix it. We picked this up when Edie was just a newborn, and redoing a piece of furniture at the time was not on my to-do list. But the other day, as I walked past this table like I do 100 times a day, I decided I would pick up a quart of paint and give it new life.
Let’s be real, I have a one year old… so I needed a quick and easy fix. I didn’t want to strip the table down and the veneer needed to be repaired and that is not in my skillset. I love chalk paint but couldn’t spend $40+ on a quart of it… so I decided to make my own chalkpaint. It’s super easy, here’s what you need:
- Quart of latex paint (in your preferred color) — I would go with a semi-gloss if you’re doing table so you can easily wipe it down.
- Plaster of Paris
- Water
It’s really simple. Take 1/3 cup Plaster of Paris and mix it with room temperature 1/3 cup of water. Mix well until the two are blended. Then add 1 cup of your latex plaint and stir.
Once you make your chalkpaint mixture, you need to tackle your project right away. Once mixed, this will not store well. I did cover the paint in plastic in between drying time and I will say that it did settle and clump on the bottom. You want to make sure you have time to do your two coats within a couple hours. Chalk paint does dry quickly, I waited about an hour to an hour and a half between coats.
I will say from experience with having used Annie Sloan Chalkpaint versus making my own, Annie Sloan goes on much thicker and doesn’t drip. My paint mixture was thinner and you need to be more mindful of runs in your paint. I chose Polished Pearl by Behr but actually bought Glidden Paint to save some money, which is only about $11 a quart. The Plaster of Paris was about $6 so after all was said and done I only spent about $20. That’s half the cost of buying a name brand quart of chalk paint. In my mind, that’s a couple meals at the grocery store, a tank of gas… it’s amazing what saving $20 can do for a family on a budget. Plus I still have plenty of the Plaster of Paris for more projects down the road.
After I did about three coats, used almost my entire quart of paint, it was time to distress in a couple places and then seal the table so it could survive a toddler and all our family meals. Just using a simple Polyurethane will do the trick.
Have a piece of furniture that’s been catching your eye for a while now and you’re just not sure what to do with it? Or your just not completely happy with it in your space but you’re on a budget and can’t buy something new? Trying giving it new life with a bit a paint. Easy, simple, and you’ll love it all over again.
Please comment with any projects you’ve redone! Would love to see projects for inspiration!
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