Amid my crazy pregnant lady planning and obsessings I decided I wanted a cute dresser for our baby's room. Okay, I didn't just want it, I needed it. I figured the kid was going to have a lot of clothes throughout her life and I wanted a cute place to store them. I also didn't really want to buy a new dresser. Dressers are annoyingly expensive in my opinion. Luckily, we had swiped a dresser from my in-laws when we got married (and by "swiped from my in-laws" I really mean "were graciously given by my in-laws"). It was a good, sturdy dresser with a reasonable amount of storage but it wasn't exactly cute. At least not baby room cute. So hubs and I started talking about painting it. As we talked about borrowing a sander, finding a place to sand it (we lived in a tiny apartment with no good place to really sand something), potentially lugging it to my in-laws to sand, types of paint to use, what color of paint to get, and so on it all seemed like a lot of work.
But then I remembered my furniture refurbing pro of a sister-in-law uses something called chalk paint when she refinishes her garage sale finds. I was pretty sure this magical chalk paint thing didn't need sanding. As I did some more research I learned that chalk paint was incredibly easy to use. You basically just slab on couple coats with a decent paint brush, add a top coat and - voila! You're done! No need to prep the furniture at all.
Now this! Was right up my alley!
Real "chalk paint" is ridiculously expensive to buy and actually a little tricky to find. Luckily, it's really easy to mix up a batch yourself using three easy-to-find ingredients.
DIY Chalk Paint Recipe
Ingredients
DIY Chalk Paint Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 parts latex paint
- 1 part Plaster of Paris
- Water to mix
(For additional chalk paint recipes using calcium carbonate, grout or baking soda check out this post from Salvaged Inspirations)
Step 1:
Mix Plaster of Paris with enough water to make a little paste. I prefer to only mix a little bit of paint up at a time as it can start to thicken over time. I like to mix about 1/3 cup of plaster of paris with a few tablespoons of water.
Step 2:
Stir paint into plaster mixture (1 cup of paint for every 1/3 cup of plaster of paris).
Step 3:
Get painting!
That's it! I was amazed at how easy the paint was to use. It covered the wood easily (which I did nothing to prep) and I only had to do two coats!
Once I was done painting I sealed the furniture with a couple coats of satin polycrylic
and added some new hardware. I relined the drawers using a cheap magenta polka dot wrapping paper I found at Target for about $2 and used this recipe for a paste (although if I were to do it again I might try this recipe instead).
And voila! A cute "new" dresser for my baby girl's room!
***This post contains affiliate links. I make a small profit when you buy products from these links at no additional cost to you***
Mix Plaster of Paris with enough water to make a little paste. I prefer to only mix a little bit of paint up at a time as it can start to thicken over time. I like to mix about 1/3 cup of plaster of paris with a few tablespoons of water.
Step 2:
Stir paint into plaster mixture (1 cup of paint for every 1/3 cup of plaster of paris).
Step 3:
Get painting!
Once I was done painting I sealed the furniture with a couple coats of satin polycrylic
and added some new hardware. I relined the drawers using a cheap magenta polka dot wrapping paper I found at Target for about $2 and used this recipe for a paste (although if I were to do it again I might try this recipe instead).***This post contains affiliate links. I make a small profit when you buy products from these links at no additional cost to you***
