Homemade Chalk Paint vs Annie Sloan Chalk Paint

Yes I'm talking about Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, yet again.  I admit it's awesome paint to use.  Why, no sanding or prepping needed.  But the downside is the price a mere $38 a quart.  So I have been researching Pinterest, and youtube, and saw where there were homemade versions of chalk paint.  After reading several post about the homemade paint I decided the Martha Stuart version had to be tried & true, and so I went with that formula!

Homemade Chalk Paint

1 cup of flat paint

2 cups of grout mix

They say to use flat paint, not sure why, I bought the grout at Home Depot for $5 and some change.  I bought the container for $1.14 because it has measurements on the side.  I slowly added the grout a small amount at a time.  Stirring well as I went, if lumps show, you need to stir more.  I found the consistency to be about perfect.

A couple of weeks ago I saw that Ace Hardware was advertising a quart of free paint Clark & Kensington.  The Ace Hardware by me doesn't carry that brand so they were substituting Benjamin Moore instead (that was even better)!  I decided to go with a completely different color, after all it is free, called 'bird of paradise' which is a coral color. 

I had these two end tables I picked up at GW and decided they would be great to practice on.

I wanted these to have a distressed look, and I don't like the blonde color underneath.  So I did use the liquid sand paper ( great stuff ) to take off the slickness, and painted them a flat brown MS color 'garden soil'.  Seriously, the liquid sand paper takes about five minutes max to do both.  Wear gloves, with clean rag rub all over the furniture.

Just a rough coat to cover

Time for the homemade chalk paint.  Painted the first coat on purposely missing some places so the brown comes thru.

Also, a trick to distressing is when the paint is tacky take a wet cloth and take off paint where you want the underneath color to show.  It doesn't require as much sanding later.

After first coat is dry I painted on the second coat again leaving some brown coming through.

side table before lacquer

 Now is time to sand. Go to your local auto store such as Auto Zone, and pick up 1000 grit sand paper, lightly sand the entire table.  I go a little harder in places I want to distress more.  I sometimes use a 150 or 250 grit paper(from your local Home Improvement Store) if I want more distressing in certain areas.

 I like these at this point, but felt like it needed more so I picked up some Lacquer and painted on the table all over for a high gloss look.  I think it adds a richness that somehow they needed.  *Just a note normally you would wax with AS wax after the sanding process. (The Annie Sloan wax is about $28 a can, but it takes very little)

hand-painted side table with lacquer finish 

  Overall I like the homemade chalk paint, and think I'll be making alot more of it in the future!

Don't be afraid, just do it! It's only paint.....You can always repaint, and I change everything so often it will probably get repainted anyway!  

If you have any painting or refurbishing questions feel free to contact me with a post or email....

Have a super fabulous weekend friends!

Kim