Saturday Fun with Chalk Paint

I've done a few refinishing projects with Milk Paint and decided I wanted to give Chalk Paint a try.I purchased a sideboard last year with the intentions of refinishing it and with Thanksgiving behind me, spent the day on my latest project.

Chalk Paint requires very little prep other than removing hardware and taping off any areas like inside the drawers or door area or for this piece the tile top.  On my piece the drawers are not removable so I had to paint them in place.  I chose to use a small 2" natural bristle brush but you can use foam brushes or even lint-free cloth to apply the paint.For this project I chose Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in Graphite.I went with a thin first coat just to see how the product went on.You want to put the product on in a haphazard manor and you don't need to follow the grain but since I was planning on a second coat, I went with the grain for my initial coat. After my first coat, my project looked very streaky and you could still see the original wood grain beneath which is not what I wanted.  By the time I finished the first coat, the product was almost dry and I started my second coat within a half hour or so.

After applying the second coat of paint the piece was a darker gray blue and you could no longer see the original color,  You can see that the product is still drying and the various brush strokes in the picture below.  Just like Milk Paint you don't really see the finished product until you add the wax finish.

Since I wanted a darker finish, I decided to apply a coat of Miss Mustard Seeds Antique Wax to darken the finish.  I applied the wax with a cotton t-shirt and used a fairly liberal amount but continued to remove any excess wax as I proceeded.  After applying the wax to the entire piece I used my buffing brush attached to my drill to buff the entire piece. Typically with an Antique Wax you are putting on your piece to make the details pop but in my case, I wanted the entire piece darkened so I applied it like a normal wax.

Since I also wanted some distressing I hand rubbed the edges and used my block sander to remove some of the chalk paint to reveal the wood beneath.  Once I was satisfied with the look, I then applied a coat of clear finishing paste to ensure I had a hard tough finish and again followed up with my buffing brush. Reinstalled the hinges and pulls - love the new pulls with the darker finish. The entire project took me only a few hours and overall I'm pretty impressed with working with the product.

In my opinion Chalk Paint is much easier to use than Milk Paint.  It comes premixed and goes on very easily.  I understand that the Graphite, which I chose for my project can be the most difficult when waxing but I didn't have any issues with my first experience. I don't think you can do as much with it like the Milk Paint and I kind of like the Milk Paint process that is unpredictable.  But overall I like the finished product and could see doing this again on future projects.  FYI - I bought a quart of the Chalk Paint but used less than 1/4 of the can for this project so it goes fairly far.  They say a quart will do two large projects.

Below is the finished piece along with my new orange wall. Not sorry to see that yellow knotty pine finish gone on the side board. I also need to refinish my table so perhaps I'll venture to try the Chalk Paint for that as well.