Chalk Paint & Wax

A few months back I was given a hutch in trade for a project I painted for a friend.  It was an old 1980's style china hutch in the typical oak style from that era complete with brass knobs and pulls.  Really not the style I wanted in my dining room.  I knew I wanted to paint it, but I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with it.

I am an avid Pintrest follower and had been looking for the perfect idea and finally decided to try my hand at chalk paint with a distressed wax finish.  I looked up a ton of different methods to figure out how I was going to do it and finally decided to give it a go!  I started out thinking that I needed to find a retailer who sold Annie Sloan's famous Chalk Paint, but after looking for retailers online I couldn't find anyone close to me who sold it.  I really wanted to see color samples before I committed to a color and thought that by the time I ordered samples online, had them mailed to me, decided on a color and ordered enough to complete my project it would be several weeks before I would be able to begin working on it.  I decided to stop by Emigh Hardware to see if they had any ideas where I might be able to find the paint locally and was surprised to find out they had a recipe for making my own!  This way I could pick any color of paint I wanted to use, mix up my own batch of chalk paint and get started right away!  The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of plaster of paris, 1/2 cup of hot water & 1 1/2 cups of paint.  Since I never actually got to use Annie's paint, I can's say that one type is any better than the other, but I can say that I was impressed with how easy it was to make and how great it covered what I was painting.  

The cool thing about chalk paint is that you don't have to strip or sand your project, (unless it is in really rough shape) you just start painting.  You don't need to be careful to follow the grain of the wood, just slap on that paint!  It dries incredibly fast and takes so much less time than the more traditional method of painting wood furniture.  I loved this project!  It was fast and easy!  Even applying the wax was a piece of cake!  As soon as the chalk paint dried I applied my first coat of clear wax to the entire piece.  This smoothes out all the roughness from the texture of the chalk paint.  I used an old burp cloth to "polish" the top of the table part of my hutch since I figured it was the portion of the piece that would probably take the most abuse.  I did not polish the entire piece, just let the wax dry and harden and I am please with the way it turned out.  After I applied the clear wax and before it had hardened I applied a very small amount of the dark wax in the areas that I wanted the piece to appear aged and worn.  A little of the dark wax goes a LONG way!!  You can thin it out by mixing the clear and dark, but make sure that you always use clear first otherwise the paint will soak up the dark wax and you will not be able to get it off.  This process also went pretty fast once I got the hang of it!

To complete the piece I knew I wanted to get new knobs, but didn't want to spend a lot of money on hardware.  I decided to spray paint most of the original hardware with an oil rubbed bronze tone.  I love how the finished product turned out!  I hope this inspires you to give it a go! Feel free to ask any questions!  I may not know the answer, but I am happy to share my experiences!

I didn't remember to get a before, but you can still see the 

natural wood color at the bottom part of the hutch.

It only took an hour or so between coats so it was easy 

to get everything painted in just one weekend!

This is the finished project now in my dining room!  

The knobs came from Hobby Lobby and were $4 for both of them.

This is the wax that I used to give the chalk paint a smooth and 

aged patina.  I found it on the cleaning aisle at the hardware store.