Up-cycle Using Chalk Paint

This was a side table my friend was getting rid of because she was moving. I had just finished my dresser makeover and this time I was really excited to use a different type of paint. I used chalk paint. So as someone who has not done a lot of furniture painting or up-cycling, I was super excited to see what this was like. I went onto youtube and watched some videos on how to use chalk paint.  These videos were super long and boring so I never really made it all the way through a video, lets be honest. 

            So I watched a video that said you didn’t need to prep the surface at all and it would only take one coat of chalk paint.  This did not happen for me I did 3 coats to get a nice even consistent coat. I also wanted to put a pattern on the top of the table, so I had some extra latex white paint around and I bought a stencil and a stencil brush. This was a little tricky I wasn’t very good at the painting and there was a lot of bleeding and the lines weren’t so crisp and also when I was taking the stencil off after painting it took the chalk paint off. This was by far the most time consuming and frustrating part of this up-cycle.  I redid and retouched this maybe 4 times and it never really came out perfectly. If I was more motivated I would totally redo the top, but I am not that motivated and it will stay as it is.

            The top coat for chalk paint is wax I was super nervous about this top coat, and again watched more youtube videos.  I was very nervous about this everyone was saying don’t use too much wax so I was very careful to use the wax sparingly, and because of this I had to do 3 coats before I thought it was really thoroughly coated. And then you have to buff it and supposedly the more you buff the shinier it gets, this was not the case for me I buffed and buffed and it was the same. Also the feel of this finish was different than any other finish and honestly I prefer the feel of more classic finishes.  Other people say they do not like plastic feel of the more classic finishes but I actually prefer it. So will I be doing wax paint again…….. yes yes I will when the mood strikes me but I think I will mostly be using latex paint and more traditional finishes.