Spring green

In my never ending pursuit to find more projects to fill my time (so I don't have to do the baseboards), I added one more to the list. Our formal dining (right off the front entrance) was filled with my Grandma and Great Grandma's furniture. Good solid pieces, but they were all wood finished in the same honey tone. The room needed some color!

I recruited my mom and we got to it!

We decided to chalk paint my Grandma's hutch (with her approval of course!). If you aren't familiar with chalk paint, it is a great choice if you don't want to spend time sanding and priming. You can simply clean your piece and paint away! The only extra step is finishing it off with polyurethane or wax to seal in the paint.

Here is the hutch before, during the prep process...

Instead of buying chalk paint, we made it ourselves using this formula: 3 parts paint + 1 part plaster of paris + water (to dissolve the plaster before incorporating it in the paint).

The color I chose is Valspar's Organic Garden. It is an olive/pea/avocado green color - something that I have quite a bit of in my house (blankets, accessories, MC's eyes), so it worked with my color scheme.

Paint color selected - it was time to get to work! Our steps were pretty simple - 1) prep (dusting, taping off anything we didn't want painted, etc.), 2) paint, 3) sand to smooth and distress, 4) add an umber glaze for more depth, and 5) wax and buff

 

After painting was done, here is what it looked like...

It was fun, but since it would be in a dining room, the distressing helped make it look a little more sophisticated (at least we thought so!).

 

I'm thrilled with how it turned out! I think it looks great as you walk into the house and I can't wait to chalk paint something else! Here are a few more pictures of the finished piece...

  

Thanks for reading!

-T