dining room chairs

chalk paint is a big diy thing.  perhaps youve heard of it ages ago and used it and can afford it and are semi-pro and shit.  well i'm not.  and until a couple weeks ago, i hadnt seen it on on my internets.  but pinteresting hours later, i found a bunch of recipes for homemade chalk paint and cobbled together my own.  and it worked surprisingly well.

perhaps you recall [or not] thanksgiving pics of a haphazard mix of chairs around my swanky inherited table.  well i finally found a 6th thriftable chair and decided to make them all match.

for this episode of "highly incomprehensible slightly verbose craft time with liz"  you need [in no particular order]:

• paint - eggshell finish is best
• plaster of paris
• a paint/mixing cup
• stir stick
• paint brush
• paint key and brush cleaner - not absolutely necessary but helpful and very cheap
• furniture wax - optional
• something to paint

here was my recipe.  i could make it all photoshoppy fancy with artsy fonts and such, but i used a sharpie and wrote it on my plaster box.  too lazy to print a recipe and too little short term memory.  plus sharpies.  awesome.  mix the hot water and plaster first so you avoid chunks and unnecessary flailing with a full cup of paint.  i approximated that 500 milliliters and 1 pint [2 cups] are about the same.  close enough.  i mean youre adding powdery water to paint.  this aint rocket science people.

regardless, 2 cups of paint will cover a very small bedside table and 6 chairs.  primed or not, it doesnt really matter.  im pretty attached to behr paint as it consistently has very good coverage and brush strokes all but disappear.  also, its easy to clean up and low voc so no passing out mid-project.  i used it on the walls and trim of my house, and i happened to find this color as an "oops" discount can at the depot.  its somewhere between avocado/paris green/mantis. 

paint pre-mixing

i assumed i need to prime the chairs since they were sealed/varnished.. and i did the most halfassed job in the world before giving up and going to bed.  but chalk paint [and behr] is worth the hype.  excellent application and coverage if you do a somewhat heavy first coat.  also, see above for the most ridiculous painting prep surface.  yes, that is a chair, balanced on a stump, on a wire shelf.  yeeeaah.

before i touched up a second [sort of] coat.  not too many drippies and only some thin spots which need a very light repaint.  protip: wait for the first coat to dry instead of getting impatient and schmearing around the wet paint.  that affects the bond between the primer and the paint and ends up looking like crap.  also if you didnt prime, it basically removes the self-priming paint from the varnished bits and again, looks like crap.  let it dry, repaint the spots that were thin with a mostly dry brush, and call it good.  also, if you see really obvious drips while the first coat is drying, do brush those out.  then you can [...but shouldnt?  if you care?] skip the sanding step everyone recommends.  its a damn chair.  with paint.  its not perfect.

possibly my favorite chair, found by the dumpster at my old apartment, with a coat of wax on the seat and the back.  i have never waxed furniture before, and this being my ... 3rd experience painting furniture, i guess its time?  i havent really had issues with chipping or peeling paint, but the internets told me to.  so i did.  basically its miyagi - wax on, wax off.  done.  its a little shinier obviously, but it does feel like it will wear ...nicely.  idk.  it may have also just been a waste of 5 minutes. 

and now some pictures of my imperfect chairs.  that all match.  yesss.  i have yet to figure out how to make the rest of the dining room match now..

tune in tomorrow for my living room/dining room "reveal"!