Two Paint Jobs Later

I mentioned BCE (before Ching era) that I was in the process of painting a dresser.  I did finish it BCE, but I never got around to taking a picture of the finished product until last week.  It started out looking very 90’s southwest, which was cool for the 90’s child (my husband) but it was time for a facelift.  It’s in our bedroom, so I had to find a color that jived with the blue-ish gray bedspread and the beige walls.  I found the picture to the right on Pinterest and decided I wanted a dark blue with gold-colored handles.  My husband was down for the dark blue, but quickly struck down the gold handles.  All our doorknobs are silver-colored and he didn’t like the idea of mixing metals.  He is surprisingly opinionated on things like this.  I protested that mixing metals is ok now according to certain décor bloggers, but he’s not convinced.  For now the knobs are left as is (white) and it actually works, but I’m considering spray painting them silver (or gold—shhhhh) sometime in the future.  Knobs are surprisingly expensive, and I’m trying to keep costs down.

The tricky thing about this dresser was that the solid-colored drawers and the body were done with a glossy paint, so I knew I couldn’t just layer on another coat of paint.  Priming was an option, but the primer I have on hand says to sand glossy surfaces before applying.  Sanding that whole puppy down did not appeal to my pregnant self, so I decided to try out a DIY chalk paint (not to be confused with chalkboard paint, although it’s kind of similar).  Chalk paint has some major sticking power, so sanding and primer are unnecessary. 

If I remember right, I did 1 part plaster of Paris (a big tub I got from Michaels for about $3 with a 40% off coupon) with enough water to make it a thickish paste and 3 parts paint.  The paint was a $3 Valspar sample from Lowe’s.  I used to think you could only pick from the samples they already had mixed, but it turns out they’ll mix any color you desire.  I prefer Valspar because their samples are a little bigger for the same price.  I rolled the chalk paint on with a little foam roller (a few coats) then topped it with some wax to give it some sheen and protection.  I like how it turned out.

Before                                  After 

A couple weeks ago I decided to also paint the end table in Ching’s room.  Before, Ching’s room was looking pretty… sterile.  Almost everything was gray or white.  It needed some color.  So I primed and painted this end table (with another Valspar sample).  It looks more green in person, by the way.  It’s nothing fancy, but it turned out cute.  I’m toying with the idea of painting the knob white.  The knob is wood and glued on, so I just painted it like the rest for the sake of simplicity.

Before                                  After