Henrietta Chalk Paint® Bookcase

A client recently brought this me this bookcase and asked me to paint it for her daughter's bedroom.  I was excited when she asked to have it painted in Henrietta Chalk Paint® because I had not used this pretty hue yet.  

The bookcase started out as light pine, complete with tacky decals.  To prevent the knots in the wood from eventually bleeding through the paint, I applied a coat of shellac to the bookcase before applying the Chalk Paint®.

I painted the inside with two coats of Old White Chalk Paint® and the outside with Henrietta.  This color is so soft and pretty.  The whole time I was painting, I kept daydreaming about eating berries and cream.  I guess that is what Henrietta reminds me of.  

I used Annie Sloan Clear Wax to seal and protect the paint followed by a touch of dark wax along all the edges and grooves to add depth and enrich the color. 

I am happy that, after being a Chalk Paint® user for three years, I can finally share a Henrietta piece with you!

Grey-Washed, Oak Chest of Drawers

I found this solid oak dresser at the Santa Cruz Flea Market recently.  It had a worn, orange finish, but beautiful hardware and lovely details.

I love painting oak furniture with Chalk Paint® because its open grain looks beautiful peaking through the paint. The technique I used on this piece is called dry brushing.  I applied one light coat of French Linen Chalk Paint with one of Annie Sloan's fabulous, natural bristle, oval brushes. Using very little paint, I worked it in and blended it with the brush to get a very thin coat, allowing the wood grain to show through.  In the past, I have used Chalk Paint® thinned with water (a wash), to get this effect, but I prefer dry brushing because sometimes the wash is uneven and does not adhere as well to furniture with a shiny finish.

One Coat of French Linen, Before Waxing

After letting the paint dry, I applied Annie Sloan's Clear Wax and then Dark Wax to enrich the color.

After Applying Clear and Dark Waxes

I also dry brushed all the hardware and applied dark wax over them for a beautiful patina.  The paint and wax really brought out the details on the drawer pulls.

This finish is easy to achieve, and although simple, it really accentuates the beautiful craftsmanship of this well-built piece of furniture.

Wall Sconces on Old Shutter Doors

I love the synergy created when two pieces of rubbish come together to form something greater than each part could ever be on its own.  That is how I feel about these vintage, louvered closet doors and this pair of scrolling iron, wall sconces.

I really scored when I found this pair of wall sconces at the local Santa Cruz Flea Market.  I got both sconces for twenty dollars! When my upholsterer was picking up some of my other projects, she mentioned that she also did rewiring, so I had her take the wall sconces to rewire them.  She is a jack, or rather, jill-of-all-trades.

I salvaged the shutter doors from the Last Chance thrift shop at a local landfill. I got nine of them at only two dollars a piece.  They are really heavy  and solid, old closet doors. Perfect for this project!

I flipped them upside down, so the shutter portion of the door is now at the bottom and mounted the wall sconce to the flat panel at the top.

 It seems simple enough, especially when my brother happened to be in town.  He is really great at taking things apart and putting them back together again.  I remember his vast lego collection and his intricate lego designs. His skills came in handy for figuring out how to mount the sconces to the shutter doors.  He used a drill attachment that drills large holes to feed the, newly rewired, cords through to the back side.  Then, luckily, the wall sconces came with mounting brackets and all we needed to get was longer screws to attach the brackets to the doors and the sconces.

Voila!

I left the original, weathered patina, that only time can create, on the wall sconces.  For the shutter doors, I painted one coat of Coco Chalk Paint® followed by a coat of Old White Chalk Paint® that I thinned with water.  I wiped the white back as it was drying, so the Coco showed through more in places.  Then, I sanded the whole door to make it look like a rough and weathered, old shutter.

I placed my new lighting fixtures on either side of  my french doors in my new apartment.

They look so lovely when they are lit and add a lot of old world charm to the room.

This simple and inexpensive project is one of my favorites of all time.

Pure White Chalk Paint® Kitchen Cabinets

 

One of our customers at Loot hired Nancy and I to paint the kitchen cabinets of her beach house.  She just purchased this home and I wish I could show you pictures of how different it looked before she started her remodel. Everything in the house was in a shade of brown when she bought it. First, She replaced the floor with this lovely, beachy hardwood.  Then, she hired us to transform her brownish-orange kitchen cabinets.

 

 

I forgot to take pictures before the cabinet doors were removed, but at least I remembered to take a few shots before we actually started painting.

 

 

 

The finish on the cabinets before was outdated and did not look right with the pretty, light countertops and bright blue backsplash.  After a little Chalk Paint®, they look like they were made to go together.

 

 The Pure White Chalk Paint® on the cabinets really tied the look together.

 

Here is the Chalk Paint® in action: no need to prime, sand, or strip the existing finish.  Just paint away! 

 

 

In order to achieve a really smooth finish, I thinned the top coat with a bit of water by dipping my brush in a cup of water periodically to keep it moist as I painted.

 

The kitchen is modern and sophisticated now and Chalk Paint® helped achieve the look.  This demonstrates that Chalk Paint® is valuable for creating many different types of finishes.  It looks beautiful and authentic on antique pieces and creates an equally stunning finish on modern, clean lines, like these kitchen cabinets. The coverage, ease of use, and versatility of Chalk Paint® are some of the reasons why I love using this paint so much.

 

 

Of course, the predictably perfect finish created with Chalk Paint® is the main reason it is my favorite decorative paint.

 

 

Chalk Paint® sticks to everything and looks the same, no matter what is beneath it.  The bar is a perfect example of this. Once covered in Chalk Paint®, the cabinets match the, newly installed, back paneling, making it look like it was always meant to be that way. 

 

 

I love her industrial style bar stools against the bright Pure White. 

 

We opted to use Annie Sloan's matte lacquer rather than the wax on these cabinets.  It is designed for use on floor, so it is really going to hold up to wear and tear on the cabinets.

 



What a brilliant kitchen now!

 

 

 

 

She also hired us to paint her front door and French doors throughout her home. 

 

Before

 

After

 

 

 

The Pure White Chalk Paint on the doors gives this sophisticated beach house a fresher, more unified look.

 

 

If you live in the Santa Cruz area, and would like to get an estimate for custom painting of your kitchen or bathroom cabinets, send me an email: amandapierre@mail.com