operation: make us a home - dining room chairs

Since my Annie Sloan experience I have been furiously working to complete my perfect dining room set. While at the workshop I chose Arles as my base paint color with Duck Egg blue as the main event. They are turning out BEAUTIFULLY!

Thank goodness too...because we having been living in a disaster area since I started the project. Ugh....I believe living in discord creates discord in the rest of your life. So its been a tough week and a half! We are ready for our living space to be back to normal and new and improved!

Here's how things are going:

Base paint

It is best to flip the chair upside down and paint the underside first. That prevents missing many spots. The wonderful part about chalk paint is no sanding, no priming!!! :) I was able to start painting immediately. I started with Arles.

Sometimes you have to use two coats of paint but since you are painting another color on top it is not as important.

Top coat

Then paint directly over it with your second color. I chose Duck Egg Blue.

Distress

Once the paint is dry, you can distress using sand paper, steel wool, scot rite pads, whatever suits your fancy! I painted in the house since its so hot here in good ole' Texas but the distressing needs to be done outside because it is CHALK paint, so it comes off like chalk! duh... As evident by my hands, it is a messy process. I chose to sand through to the original wood in some places and just enough to see the yellow in others. Also, try to choose the spots you distress wisely. Think of where your hands touch the most. Do you use the top to pull out the chair? Put your feet up on the leg supports? Do what looks natural.

Wax brush

Then comes the waxing. This is the brush I bought for the clear wax. Its important to get it into all of the nooks and cranies so this brush is perfect to really work it in.

Cover the whole chair with the clear wax. It can go pretty far but you have to make sure it covers everything or else it will wear away faster.

Dark wax

I could have stopped with the clear wax but these chairs need a little something extra, a little more depth so I used the dark wax as well. It adds to the distressed look quite a bit. You really don't want to use a lot of the dark wax because it can change the whole look of a piece. If you use too much on everything it all starts to look the same. Once you put the wax on take a rag and rub it off to how you want it to look.

Add another layer of clear wax to seal it and buff it out with a rag and you are ready to go!!!

Tomorrow I will show you the finished product! And our next project...its never ending, right??