Sweeter than Serenity: From Old to New

When moving or redecorating your home, one of the biggest challenges is trying to find furniture that works just perfectly. The biggest problem is that what worked perfectly in one home, might not work as perfectly in another home. This was something that happened to me when I made my move to Conway from Fayetteville.

I decided that I really wanted to brighten up my room (otherwise there's no way any studying would happen in there!), so I decided to get a white comforter and go with bright accents, mostly yellows. The problem with this was that my wood furniture looked a little funny with the bright comforter and accents, so I decided to paint it!

I made my own chalk paint following some directions from Lowe's website, and I also got all my materials from Lowe's. The man in the paint section was extremely helpful to me. All I had to do was bring my list of items that I needed and he found all of them for me, and even instructed me on how to mix it properly and what paintbrush to use.

Here are the items that you will need in order to mix your paint:

Chalk-Finish Paint Recipe:

Valspar Signature flat latex paint

Plastic paint buckets

Plaster of Paris

Stir sticks

Plastic measuring cups

Water

Paste wax

Directions:

Mix 1/3 cup of plaster of Paris and 1/3 cup of cool water; stir until completely smooth. Mix that with 1 cup of latex paint and stir thoroughly. This will make enough chalk-finish paint for one coat on a six-drawer dresser. Chalk-finish paint should not be stored and reused. If you have a smaller project, mix small amounts of plaster, paint, and water in the same proportion.

Now onto the project. I started by removing the hardware from my dresser and desk.

Next, I applied my first coat of paint. I only applied one coat to my dresser and desk because I wanted a distressed look with only one color. You can apply more coats if you want a solid colored piece, or you can layer colors (I'll explain that in a minute).

Once your chalk paint is dry and you have as many coats of paint on as you want, it's time to put the wax on top. I used a washcloth and just wiped it over the top. It adds a nice finish to your piece. Now, if you want to do a second color, that is where this wax comes in handy. The wax seals in the first color, so that if you want to do a second color on top and sand through to the bottom color in places, the wax keeps all the paint from sanding off so that you can still see the first color.

Once you get the wax on, it's time to put the hardware back on.