My Grandmother gave me this china cabinet when they moved here last year. It's been sitting in my garage since November, just waiting for me to decide what I wanted to do with it. It's an oak cabinet, I knew that I didn't want to take a bunch of time sanding and priming it. I decided to try out chalk paint for the very first time. I've never used it before but it gets glowing raves + reviews from everyone I know that's ever used it.

When I attended an anniversary sale at a local gift shop they were selling Annie Sloan chalk paint for 10% off that day, I decided to cross my fingers and hope it'd turn out well. I bought some that day and was excited to start working on my cabinet.

Here's some before pics of the cabinet, it has nasty brass hardware on the doors that I'm going to replace with some fun new knobs.

With chalk paint there's no sanding or priming required. I kinda loved this because really who wants to spend a lot of time doing that if there's a different way? For my cabinet all I did was wipe it down with a dry cloth, making sure there wasn't any dust or dirt on it since it'd been sitting in my garage for a while.

Next I taped newspaper over the glass in the doors so I didn't get paint on it. I didn't remove the doors to paint either, I just used a smaller paint brush to go around the hinges. I also used painters tape to tape around them making sure I didn't get paint on the hardware.

I did take off the brass knobs, since I wasn't going to be putting those back on.

I used a regular paint brush, I didn't buy the Annie Sloan brushes. Just used one I got at Lowes.

I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Grey and the soft wax.

Here's the after:

knobs: Hobby Lobby

Print: Lindsay Letters via Hobby Lobby

Topiaries: Target

I love how it turned out, and I love filling it with my vintage dishes and some serving pieces. Using chalk paint was so easy, it covers so well. I did two coats on everything. I can't wait to try this again on other furniture, and even contemplating using it on my kitchen island.

Have you used Annie Sloan chalk paint before? Any tips or thoughts to share?

Andrea Worley