My poor kitchen table has been around the block more than a few times. It’s still in excellent working condition, but the top is a bit banged up, scratched, dinged and the stain had been removed in a spot due to a fight with a Wallflower from Bath and Body works.
I am in love with Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint. I’m not in love with the price though. I decided I would try mixing my own. There are lots of recipes all over the Internet. I found the one I would use over at Salvaged Inspirations. The comparison and instructions were clear and concise. I decided to go with the Plaster of Paris option (#2). After picking up all the things I would need, I went home and made my mix. I cleaned my table and started painting. Initially, I was looking for a white table top, keeping the legs and chairs brown.
Items Needed:
- Plaster of Paris
- Water
- Paint (I picked up a sample of Glidden paint in Crisp Linen)
- Paint container with lid
- Paint brush or roller
- Cream Wax or Furniture Wax (I used both)
- Table
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| On the left is where the table lost the battle with the wall flower. |
I mixed one part Plaster of Paris and one part water and added the paint. I guessed at about the amount of paint I added. I don’t think I added enough paint. It was hard to tell since the paint and the plaster of pairs and water were almost the same color.
I should have known something was wasn’t mixed right because after the first coat it was really streaky. I started with a brush in the middle and it kind of smeared around. I switched to a roller, and you can see where and didn’t cover very well. I waited about 30 minutes and tried a second coat.
By this time the paint was “dry”, but not as dry as Annie Sloan’s paint would be. When I went to put the second coat, to my horror my mixture had thickened up quite a bit. Oh the horror! I added some more water and gave it a good mix. I applied the second coat and it started lifting off in some spots! I let that coat dry.
You can see where it got all lumpy. Here is where I should have let the table dry completely, and then sanded it down, and then apply the layer of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. But by this point I wasn’t really thinking logically. I knew going in that I would have had to sand it down, as the paint would not bee as smooth as Annie Sloan’s but I didn’t think it would have gotten this lumpy.
Thankfully, Kira and and her daughter stopped over, and distracted me for a bit. Which allowed the paint to dry. After Kira and Bella left, I grabbed my can of the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Grey. I added a coat and called it a night. By this point I was frustrated and needed to take a step back from painting.
After sleeping on it, I woke up early Sunday and got to fixing the mess. I decided to sand down as much of the lumpy parts I could before putting a second coat of the Paris Grey
This is what the table looked like after spending about 2 hours of sanding. I didn’t need to sand all the way down to the brown, just make it smooth. To collect the dust, I hooked up my vacuum hose and sucked up the piles of dust that accumulated. In some spots, I did sand down to the table, but those were the parts I wanted to seem distressed/worn down.
I’m not sure why I’m in a gray mood lately. But I think it goes well with the hutch I painted last year. Keeping the chairs and legs dark, it matches the shelves on the hutch.
Up next is a table I brought back from my dad’s. I’m going to paint that and use it as my craft table. Hopefully, soon I’ll be working from home and my desk in my office is going to be put to good use.
Crafty Llama by Lonie 