Annie Sloan Chalk Paint

This Spring I went a little crazy and painted a lot of our furniture. I was so thrilled to finally have my HQ16 quilting machine out of the dining room after four years, and I felt like my whole house had been neglected (it was) and needed a face lift. I put new fabric on my dining room chair seats, recovered the snack bar stools seats and painted the legs white, painted a quilt rack with white milk paint and painted two small pine chests with blue milk paint. While all of this was going on, I was doing some research on-line because I wanted to slipcover a couple of chairs. I came across this blog, Miss Mustard Seed, and that is where I learned about Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I was really curious about what the fuss was and wanted to try some for myself, but when I saw the price--yikes. Very expensive!!! Plus, there aren't any dealers locally and the shipping would have been crazy. But....I just really wanted to try it out, especially since I had this chest that I was not in love with anymore. 

This chest just didn't fit into our decor anymore, plus, the veneer was
splitting on the sides at the curves

You see, Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (ASCP) can be used over any surface--any surface WITHOUT prepping!! No sanding, de-glossing, no removing old wax or polish, Nothing. Just start painting! And getting this chest ready to paint was not going to be fun. Soooooo...well, you know...I had to buy myself some ASCP! I found a wonderful source here and ordered Louis Blue and White. I think you can figure out what my decorating theme is by now?

Anyway, my hubby helped me lift the chest onto the dining room table and I have to confess that I did one little bit of prepping that you can see in the photo of the side of the chest. The veneer had separated on the curves, so I smoothed them out with a little filler.

This is a shot of the side of the chest with one coat of ASCP  before
distressing and waxing. My little patch job bled through a little,
 so I did add a bit of a second coat of paint to the sides just where the
repair had been done.

The paint really does cover in one coat. I retouched a little bit over the patched areas but on the rest of the chest there is just the one coat. After it dried, I lightly sanded the carved areas to bring out the detail. I like kind of a primitive cottage/farm house look. ASCP is supposed to be waxed after it dries and there is a special Annie Sloan wax and a special Annie Sloan brush--those weren't in my budget. I used some Min Wax that I already had on hand, and an old paint brush to apply the wax. This process went so fast! The chest was back in our front hallway by the next afternoon.

I left the top of the chest unpainted since the hardware seemed to be
"dyed to match" the wood color.  My flash makes the painted surface look shiny,
 but it is  more like an eggshell finish.

 My can of paint is still three quarters full (and I have that unopened can of white) so I need to find something else around here I can redo.
I am dying to paint our Grandfather clock, but my husband has forbidden it--I wonder though, if he would really notice if I did it someday while he was out fishing...........

Linking up at: Between Naps on the Porch, Furniture Friday at Miss Mustard Seed,
and Sunday's Best at My 1029 Charmer