MyWhiskeyDreams Become Reality: DIY: Chalk paint and distressing a chair

Turn an old boring wood chair into something colorful and "new" again!

What you will need:
Wooden chair (or whatever furniture)
Sand paper- 220 and 100 (fine and medium grit)
Paint brush
Paint any color
Matte clear spray paint
Plaster of Paris
Water
Plastic container(2)
Stirring sticks
Rags

   I got my chair on a local Facebook resale page for only 5 bucks! It was an awesome deal for a sturdy, barely dinged up chair! Garage sales, thrift stores, and antique shops all work as an option of finding a chair, or even an old dining room chair that's sitting in storage or the dusty garage. I have two chairs I will end up doing and using for photo shoot I will be doing in the near future!

   After picking up my chair I headed to Home Depot, any store that carries home repair supplies should do, and picked out paint colors and grabbed the rest of the items needed. I chose to do one Gliddens Granite Grey, and this one is Gliddens Sea of Turquoise. While they mixed those up, I went and grabbed everything else, luckily its all in one area.... But I didn't know that at the time, I was wondering the isles looking for sand paper thinking it was near sanding tools and the wood. After stopping and asking someone, they pointed me in the right direction. I picked everything out, grabbed the paint, checked out and headed home.

   The next morning I started my project! Left my pajamas on from the night before, put my hair into a bun and was ready to get dusty. I started by sanding the chair using the fine grit sand paper (220), I wasnt looking to get down to the original wood color. I just wanted to rough up the surface and get the shine from the previous finish off, just enough to make the paint stick. After getting all the nooks and crannies sanded I wiped the dust off just using an old shirt rag and an air compressor to get the tight spots. Using an Air Duster usually used to clean a keyboard would work too, just want all that dust off.

   Once I didn't see anymore dust I mixed my paint, I used a chalk paint recipe I saw online and it was more then enough to cover a chair. I probably mixed enough to cover a set of 4 chairs and still have a little left over, so if you mix this up please readjust to fit your project.

DIY chalk paint:
1/3 cup Water
1/3 cup Plaster of Paris
1 cup Paint
*Use measuring cups that you don't use for food.

   In a plastic container, that they sell near the paint, mix the water and Plaster of Paris together until completely mixed, then add the paint and mix until combined. Grab your paint brush, I used Wooster Pro for all paints and stains, and you are ready to paint your chair or any other wood furniture.

I started with doing the legs, so I flipped the chair and went at it. This paint mixture dries pretty fast so work fast applying the first coat. The first go around I made it a pretty even thin coat making sure I got the paint in the curves of the wood work. I let it dry for about 10-15 minutes before going in with a second coat. This time I did a thicker coat, making sure to brush it on going with the grain of the wood. After letting it dry I gently flipped it and did the same thing first coat, letting it dry and going onto a second thicker coat. For the seat I did a third coat to even out the brush strokes and get rid of marks from painting the back rails. After getting it even I let it sit for a couple of hours and dry completely

After a day at work I came home and cut small squares of each grit level of sand paper. To me, this was the worst part of the process. I wasn't sure if where I was making the distressed marks were in the right spots, but in the end where you place them is up to you. I went on places that looked warned already, I took the medium grit sand paper and roughed the paint up enough to get to the wood. After getting a size of wear that I liked I went over it with the fine grit sand paper to smooth it out. After a few spots I noticed that it was looking too uneven with the paint the was barely sanded. So I took part of a shirt rag and rubbed over each spot to blend out the color and look more like it was naturally warn down. You don't want each spot to be the same, make different shapes, use different pressure to make the marks harsher or less barely scuffed marks, and get the places you think no one will see!

Once I was done with the distressing I wiped the chair down to get the paint flakes and dust off and sprayed it with the matte top coat just to give it a completely flat finish. If you don't want a matte finish you can use a glossy finish, or even a glitter spray! But for me matte was the way to go so I don't have any reflection when I take pictures.