By Stephanie
So I have been so intrigued by chalk paint (NOT to be confused with chalk board paint) ever since I saw it on Miss Mustard Seed. She also uses milk paint. Amy (my sister) has used milk paint with great success. I have a LOT of furniture painting projects and after the armoire, I was not looking forward to them. I thought maybe if I had some chalk paint it would be easier. With milk and chalk paint you are suppose to be able to paint on practically any surface without sanding or prepping. That sounded awesome! But there are some down sides to chalk paint. First there is only one company that makes it. Annie Sloan's is the manufacture. Then they have people who sell it. In Nevada that would be NO ONE! So availability in my area…not so good. Second, it has limited color selections. If you look online some of the stockists have experimented with mixing colors. So you can get more variety. But not all can do that. You can mix them yourself, but for the price, if you screw up, you are going to be very sorry. And that last bit, the price, it kind of took my breath away. About $40 for a quart. Now understand, that chalk paint is suppose to go a long way. With that can you can paint a LOT of furniture. But you also have to seal it with a wax. Again, Miss Mustard Seed's blog offered some options. The one that I could buy without shipping was Briwax.
It was sold at my local TrueValue. It was pricey. About $20, but again it goes a LONG way. I haven’t tried the other waxes she mentions and I used a rag. Maybe if I paint some more, I will try buying the super expensive brush….or not. But since I live where it is hot, I left the wax in the garage. It was nice and soft. You can put the can with the lid on in a sink of warm water if you live where it is colder (and yes, I am so sorry you live where it is colder, poor thing).
Back to chalk paint…..
I saw online some recipes for homemade chalk paint. After reading several blogs, I came up with this “Recipe”
Calcium Carbonate powder was the key. It is a powder, and pretty cheap. I think I paid like $8.00 for a bottle. I couldn’t find it locally, so I bought it on the internet with free shipping of course. Now each of the blogs differed in the amount of calcium carbonate. Some said 1/4 up to 1/3. You take the powder put it in a plastic sealable container (about quart size) and add in 1/4 to 1/3 of the powder (not of the bottle of the total you want to have at the end). Add in water. Just enough to make it wet and stir like crazy until there are no lumps. You might need to add in more water. But just add a bit at a time. Then when you have it smooth, add in the flat paint. Any brand, any color. And believe me, it goes a long way. I bought one of the tester paints at Home Depot and added it in for the girls dresser drawers. I made enough paint to paint almost all of the wood furniture in the house! SO NOT KIDDING! So remember, unless you plan of painting most of your furniture with this, a little goes a long way. And it dries out fast! SO make sure the minute you are done put plastic wrap over the top and then a good lid. It will keep for weeks (it might keep longer, but I only tested four weeks). And it dries super fast. I did two coats of paint. You can do more or less depending on the look you want. And make sure you do the wax in a well ventilated area. You can get high off those fumes! It does take 24 hours for the wax to set and then you go back with a rag and buff it. So far so good. It was a LOT easier and faster then having to sand and prep. I am hooked. I don’t know how it compares to the real stuff since I haven’t ever used it. But I have a few (dozen) projects that I am ready to tackle now.
Before
After
I did also use it on the desk in Nathan's Room. See here..
Before
After…
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