DIY Chalky Finish Paint Bench Makeover

Have you ever wondered how to paint furniture? If so, you may love today’s project, a DIY Chalky Finish Bench Makeover. If you like this post you may also like this Jewelry Box Makeover or this Painted Mirror Project. This post is sponsored by DecoArt, all opinions and hair-brained ideas are 100% mine…. all mine…

Several years ago after we moved into our current house, I made a habit of stopping by my favorite furniture stores on a regular basis to see if they were getting rid of any of their floor samples. The technique worked out pretty well and I was able to collect most of the furniture we used in our play room that way. Most of the pieces were pretty worn by the time I got them but it didn’t bother me since I figured my kids would ding up the furniture once we got it home.

You may remember me mentioning (aka bellyache-ing) about the “great room shuffle” that we took on last December. We relocated my sewing room to the old playroom, donated all of our old toys, moved one daughter into my old sewing room and moved another daughter into daughter 1’s old bedroom. It was crazy…. and I was totally exhausted when we finished it.

When we moved my sewing room into the old playroom we decided to keep the furniture that was in there and repaint it. I spent most of December painting this entertainment cabinet (it was the same color as the bench and was also painted with Chalk paint). My intention always was to paint the coffee table next, but I was just too burned out by the time we finished moving to tackle that project. Here you can see the project mid move… if you want to see some very NOT STAGED photos of the room finished you can click here.

With summer almost here I decided it was time to paint the coffee table. The table is actually an entryway bench but I’m going to use it as a coffee table in my sewing room. It was pretty banged up after years of abuse from my kids and I decided that painting it and distressing it would really bring out some of the character.

I used the Americana DECOR chalky Finish paint for this project. The colors I used were – Everlasting (white), New Life (Green), Inheritance (yellow), Smitten (Coral). I also used the Creme Wax and a waxing brush to finish the project.

I thought it would be fun to make the 3 cubbies on the bench “pop” by painting them in different colors.

If you’d like to try a project like this here’s how I did it:

First before you start, make sure you stir your Chalky Finish paint VERY WELL!!

I began by painting the entire bench (except the cubby interiors) with Everlasting Chalky Finish Paint. I just used a standard paint brush. It took 3 coats to cover the dark wood color, if you’re doing this with a darker paint it might take less coats, but plan on at least two. It took 1 ½ bottles to cover the entire piece.

I knew that I wanted the paint colors to be lighter, so I mixed some of the white paint with some of the colored paint in a few mason jars. I just mixed until I got a color I liked. I took one more jar of white paint to get enough to lighten all 3 colors of paint.

Since I mixed the paint in mason jars I could easily store the extra paint for later use.

After the white was dry I taped off the boundaries of the cubbies, then painted each cubby a different color.

It also took 2-3 coats. Make sure you let each coat dry before you start another coat.

After the paint was completely dry I used my electric sander to distress the bench and smooth out all of the paint. I used a 120 grit sandpaper. Anything heavier than that won’t give you a smooth finish.

I then wiped down the bench to remove the paint dust and applied one coat of Creme Wax. I let that coat dry then I buffed the surface with a clean white cloth. Which gave a nice sheen to the wax.

The project took a few days just because I only worked on it a few minutes at a time, and I love how it turned out! you’d never recognize the dinged up bench I started with!

Visit the DecoArt Chalky Finish website for more chalk paint ideas and inspiration.