China Cabinet Refinish

I'm refinishing my 2nd piece of furniture with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  I just love using it!  It is so easy and fun to use and it covers so well!!  So the piece I am doing now is an old china cabinet that needed some extra attention.

Here it is...see what I mean...it needs a little love!  First things first...I removed the wooden knobs since I am going to replace them with new hardware.  Next, I washed it down with soap and water to get all of the dust and debris off of it.  Let it dry overnight and then, I sealed it with Zissner clear shellac which I got from Home Depot.


For this piece I decided I was going to try to mix some different chalk paint colors.  I wanted to do something dark gray, but my husband wanted a lighter gray.  So I compromised....I mixed a dark gray color called Graphite and a lighter gray color called Paris Gray.  I mixed 1 part Graphite to 2 parts Paris Gray.  You can click on the Annie Sloan link above to see all of the colors!  Once I decided on the colors, I went to my local retailer, Drab 2 Fab to get the paint.  When I was there I saw a piece where they had a solid color on the top of the cabinet and then another lighter color on the rest of the cabinet.  That was perfect!  Dark for me and light for my husband!  Here is what it looked like after letting the shellac dry for about an hour and using 1 and a half coats of paint  (I did let the paint dry overnight between coats) and a little sanding....



So I sanded the edges of the doors and the trim on the doors.  I also sanded on the doors and the bottom lip to help it look a little more distressed.  I did not do any sanding to the top of the cabinet where the Graphite paint was.  I applied 2 coats of chalk paint to it and no sanding.  When I sanded the doors, some of the old paint from before showed through.  I liked the distressed look and didn't want a completely smooth finish on this piece so I decided to try washing it with just the Paris Gray.  To "wash" it I took 1 part of water to 1 part of paint and mixed it together really well.  I applied it with some painters cheesecloth.  I used vertical strokes when applying it and then went back over it with some more cloth rubbing off the excess until I was happy with the application.  I did darker in some spots and lighter in others so it didn't look uniform.  This was the look after I washed it....

After letting it dry overnight I applied some Annie Sloan clear wax to it.  I used circular motion and worked it into the piece and then wiped the excess off with the painters cheesecloth.  The cabinet looked really flat before, but once I added the wax it really shined up nice.  To the touch it was smooth but not tacky, so I knew I had gotten all of the extra wax off of it.  I let it sit overnight and then I applied the hardware I had picked out for it.  I got these knobs from Hobby Lobby.  I didn't know they had so many pieces of hardware!  Definitely check it out!!  And here's the final product.....

I am really happy with the way it turned out.  Now to fill it and decorate!  Chalk paint is a great way to refinish furniture.  It's so easy and helps the amateur painter finish with ease!  On to the next piece...


Happy Painting!!!

My First Furniture Restore

So I acquired this cool old piece of furniture from a family friend.  It was old and been sitting in a garage for some years.  It was dirty and broken down and in need of some much needed attention.  I had been in Vernal for a baseball tournament with my son and I stumbled upon this cute little store, Ohh La La and Friends,  and fell in love with chalk paint.  They were really kind and told me about the paint and how easy it was to use.  They only used the Annie Sloan brand and they LOVED it!!  I told my husband I wanted to try it with a small item...a frame or something...but then this happened!!


I cleaned it, taped off the mirrors and glass pieces, removed the old hardware and looked at a few pieces online to get an idea of what I wanted to do and decided I was ready to try it!  I went to my local distributor of Annie Sloan paint, Drab 2 Fab.  They walked me through what I would need to get started, from brushes to paint to wax, they even showed me on a sample piece how to use the wax and what it should feel like when I was finished! They were awesome & I will definitely be going back for more supplies.  I chose the Annie Sloan French Linen paint.  I also decided I was going to wax my piece instead of using another type of finish.  I purchased both the light wax to seal my piece and then the Dark Wax to antique it with.


After I cleaned my piece and let it dry I decided to use a shellac to seal it so that no color from the wood or the years of using pledge or other oils would bleed through my paint.  After that, I started painting.  Most things I read said it didn't matter on the first coat what direction you painted, just to get it all covered.  I tried to go all the same direction if I could, but in those harder to reach places I didn't care so much.  Here is what it looked like after the 1st coat....

At first I was worried...it looked a mess, but from reading online, that's what the first coat does!  Phew!!!  I waited 3 hours to let it dry and then I put on the second coat, which I did paint all in the same direction, mostly because I wasn't sure if I would need 2 or 3 coats.  I let that dry overnight and then looked it over.  I decided it needed one more coat.  With this coat, I dipped my brush in a little bit of water and then made long strokes in the same direction.  I didn't want a lot of texture in the paint and this seemed to make my finish look more smooth and less brush lines.  I let that dry overnight, ok...maybe a few days until I could get back to it!  This is what it looked like...

I then waxed the piece with the Annie Sloan Clear Wax.  I just did small sections at a time and wiped it down with some painters cheese cloth to get the excess wax off.  Then I began using the Annie Sloan Dark Wax.  I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to use the dark wax on so I just started applying it to places I thought might accent it nicely.  I wasn't too worried because I knew I could always put the clear wax on it to take the dark wax off.  I started by using a sponge, throw away brush, but then I switched to just an old cotton t-shirt that wouldn't leave any cloth residue on my piece.  Here is a picture of how I started using the dark wax...

I didn't love how that was looking and I couldn't decided if I wanted to put the dark wax on the whole piece or use the clear wax to remove it all.  After thinking it over, I decided I liked the antique look and I would use the dark wax on the entire piece.  So with cloth in hand, I put some dark wax on and then rubbed it into the piece until I was satisfied.  Here is the final piece...

I added new hardware and then a wallpaper finish to the back of the piece behind the shelves.  I actually just had a piece of plywood cut to size and put the wallpaper on that in case I wanted to change it out from time to time.  I am very pleased with the final product.  It was a fun project and I loved learning to use the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint!  Now on to the next project.....