Old furniture given new life!

For as a long as I can remember I have had the same bedroom furniture.  When my husband and I bought our home we needed a bedroom suit and my childhood furniture came with us until we were ready to buy new furniture.  Well it has been about 6 years since we moved in and the furniture is still here.  I think we have purchased new furniture for every room except for ours.  Recently I kept looking at the furniture and thinking we either need to buy new stuff or redo the stuff we have.  I hated the idea of going to buy furniture and spend tons of money.  We have a pretty large bedroom and there are 2 large dressers and 2 small end tables.  So buying furniture to fill the space would be an investment to say the least.

While searching Pinterest one day I decided to to check out some tutorials on how to paint furniture.  After doing some researching I finally decided to test out my painting skills on one piece.  I decided on DIY chalk paint.  At first I looked at purchasing actual chalk paint, but boy is it expensive.  My dad who used to own a furniture restoration business thought I was crazy, but I talked to him about the technique I was going to try and he said give it a shot.

My next thought was what color??  Rustic blue, green, mustard or red?   Too many choices...  I then made a quick trip to Lowes and found a color that caught my eye: Valspar Bossa Nova.

For the project I bought:

• Sample jar of Valspar Bossa Nova (about $3)
• Plaster of Paris (about $7)
• Varies sizes of sponge brushes (about $5 total)
• Minwax Finishing Wax (about $8)
• Sandpaper

Chalk Paint Recipe:

1. Mix 1 part warm water (1/4 C)  with 1 part Plaster of Paris (1/4 C) until all lumps are gone
2. Add 3 parts paint (3/4 C)

Original Piece

I started the project the very next day in my dining room while I had one kid running around and another hanging out  I started by doing very light sanding and wiping down the dresser with a damp cloth afterwards.  I then did a coat of paint.  I was surprised how smooth and fast it went on.  There was virtually no dry time...all the better with young kids running around.

After the 1st Coat

I did an additional 2 coast in about 2 hours time.  After completely drying I did some sanding to distress it and then wiped with a damp cloth again. 

3rd Coat prior to distressing

I then put 3 layers of wax on to shine it up a bit.

Finally I decided it needed some new hardware.  I went to Hobby Lobby and found some great knobs at $3 a piece.  All in all I'm happy with how it turned out and I can't wait until I do them all.  I figured it would be just over $100 to do all 4 pieces including the hardware.  Not bad at all and I love it!