The Chalk-painted Bench of Awesomeness
This winter has made me more than a little stir-crazy, so one morning a few weeks ago I decided our makeshift kitchen 'bench' (side table) needed a color facelift...stat! Now, I'm not super-crafty-I-have-ample-time-on-my-hands Mom, so this should tell you how fun and easy this project was.
I love the look of distressed, chalk-painted furniture (different from chalk-board paint, for the record); my inspiration came from a old, worn, distressed-looking green dresser (the image was removed by Google - go figure!).
Chalk paint is awesome. You don't have to prime before you paint with it (I was sold right there), it goes on matte, really lending itself to that 'shabby chic' look, you can slap it on however you want, scrape it off, start over, sand it down, slather on more...and it just looks better and better. It's like magical, fool-proof paint (another selling point in my book). So Annie Sloan owns the market on chalk paint, but her stuff is extremely limited (in versatility, color variety, and availability). It's also expensive; one quart costs about $50. (So I started thinking...we can do bettah than that! Yeah?)
I've listed out what I did below, if you're interested. I probably did this 'wrong', but I was just messing around, and it was super fun.
Ingredients:
Acrylic or Latex Paint
Baking Soda
Water
Step 1:
Mix a tiny bit of water into some baking soda, forming a smooth consistent paste.
Step 2: Combine
Remember, 2 parts paint to 1 part baking soda mixture. So however much baking soda mixture you use, double your paint (i.e. 1/2 cup baking soda mixture, 1 cup paint). Some people opt for putting the baking soda directly into the paint; you'll just have to experiment and see which recipe you like.
Steps 3-5: Paint, Distress, Wax
I painted two coats, thinner in some areas because I wanted it to look worn.
I distressed it with a scoring sponge thing I found at Target, and finished it up with two coats of Howard's Citrus Shield Premium Paste Wax.
So yeah. Like I said, there's probably waaaaaaaaaaay better tutorials out there for doing stuff like this, but it was a lot of fun and I love how the Bench of Awesomeness turned out!