Chalk Paint or Eggshell – What’s your favourite
Up-cycling is all the rage these days. It’s a great way to recycle old pieces of furniture and give them a new lease of life. Emer here at DoneDeal is a dab hand at it. In this blog, she’s going to focus on paint – chalk paint and eggshell.
Chalk Paint
Without blabbing on about the reasons why I ended up with just one kitchen chair out of a set of six, that chair had a sentimental value which meant I just couldn’t throw it out even though it was a bit bashed up.
Chalk painted chair
So, I decided to try out the much talked about Chalk Paint as opposed to my usual choice which would be Eggshell Paint.
The main attraction of chalk paint is that there isn’t as much need for the sanding and preparation you need to do to use normal paint. The finish from Chalk Paint is kind of part of its charm… its not perfect, nor is it meant to be. In fact, giving it a distressed look seems to be a preference for many.
Anyhow, with a quick wipe and clean down, I set out painting my chair. The paint itself was easy to use (I found it best to water it down a bit), but it does dry very quickly and the coverage is excellent. If its a quick project you want to spruce up something that is looking a bit dilapidated, then Chalk Paint is a great choice.
After you’ve finished and your work is dry, you do need to seal it off with wax, and you can distress it a bit with sandpaper on corners etc, but this is where I felt what is gained in not preparing is lost in the importance of the finishing off. Waxing takes a bit of time, I didn’t feel you could just lash it on and then buff it off. You needed to make sure to get the wax all over the piece of furniture, make sure you didn’t leave any lumps of wax anywhere and then come back and buff it up the next day.
Eggshell painted drawers
Onto my little project with Eggshell Paint. I had a little chest of drawers, not a spectacular piece of furniture but a useful piece. I knew I could use it in a living room area in my house but it was very worn out looking.
I spent a little bit of time sanding, cleaning down and preparing it for undercoat and an Eggshell top coat. The result was lovely, and when you are finished with the paint brushes, that is it, no waxing. The paint is more durable also, a bit of a more professional finish I feel.
Try it out though, get started with small pieces and enjoy it!
