When our first daughter was born, we bought a cute table & chairs with pirates on it. It’s received a fair amount of abuse over the years (enough abuse that one of the chairs broke). My wife wanted to try using “chalk paint” to restore furniture.
Read on for how it’s done...
Materials:
- Sodium carbonate (you can find it at craft stores or online)
- Finishing wax (available at home improvement stores)
- Latex paint
- Paint brush (an expensive one can make the result nicer)
- 80-150 grit sand paper
First, pick out the furniture you’re going to restore. Give it a rough sanding. This will help the paint adhere.
Next, find your latex paint. We used some left over paint from when repainted our front door. You can use interior or exterior paint. You can often find a bargain in the paint rejects at home improvement stores.
Mix four tablespoons of sodium carbonate with one tablespoon of water. Stir until it looks milky. Next, mix that with one cup of paint. Stir thoroughly.
Ratio: 4 tablespoons of sodium carbonate + 1 tablespoon of water per 1 cup of paint.
The color of the paint may not change drastically from it’s original hue. We found it looked lighter once we brushed it on. If you want it lighter, you can always add more sodium carbonate in a second coat.
You may need multiple coats to cover the old color. We ended up with three coats.
Note: paint mixed with sodium carbonate dries out quickly. Make small batches & work swiftly. Our kids helped with ours and the paint was drying out by the end. We added a few drops of water to rehydrate the paint before we did the last chair.
Let the paint dry overnight. Then, it’s time for the wax. We used Verathane Wax.
Multiple coats with the wax made a tremendous difference. Also, we found simply buffing the wax by hand with a soft, clean rag increased the luster. Buffing between coats of wax is how we ended up with this shine.
That’s it. Have fun. Experiment!