Recently while browsing my local Aldi, I came across their new DIY range which included £5 tins of chalk paint. As a big fan of Annie Sloan chalk paint at £18 a tin, I got massively excited and had to try it. The colour choice is quite limited to light grey, dark grey, white, and duck egg ( well this is what my store had) they are all very useable colours. In this blog post I will show you how to upcycle furniture using chalk paint, it might inspire you to give new life to a piece of furniture you have in your home.

I have upcycled quite a few furniture projects over the years with chalk paint but thought I would do a little blog post just encase you had a) never heard of chalk paint or b) had heard of it but was unsure how to use it.

If you are wondering what chalk paint is, it is a versatile paint for DIY projects that dries with a matt chalky finish to it. It often shows the brush marks, this is part of its charm and can be easily distressed to give an antique look.

I purchased this plant stand a few weeks ago from my local charity shop for £10. You can find some amazing solid wood, antique pieces in charity shops, car boot sales and vintage fairs to easily upcycle with chalk paint. I prefer pieces like this as they have character but you can use chalk paint on a whole number of surfaces from glass, wicker, MDF and metal.

What you will Need

Aldi Chalk Paint

Paint Brushes

Sandpaper (optional)

How to Make

Make sure your project piece is clean and dry and that your work surface is protected. My plant stand had a rather vintage looking green top, so to update this I taped it off and sprayed it with silver spray paint to match the grey wood. Once that is dry take the lid off the chalk paint and give it a good stir ready to upcycle your furniture.

Start painting the wood with your chalk paint, there is no need to prep the surface, which is great as it means projects can be transformed in super quick time. The chalk paint dries very quickly too, and I only really leave 20 minutes in between coats.

I did find that the Aldi chalk paint didn’t cover in one coat, Annie Sloan paint generally would cover in one coat, but I guess this also depends how dark the wood surface is. I put 3 coats of paint on my plant stand in the end. Use a smaller brush to get to the edges and the small detail in the furniture.

After the 3 coats, I left it overnight to fully dry, I probably didn’t have to leave it this long, a couple of hours would have done but I was out for the evening so just left it over night.

The next step is personal preference but I prefer my upcycled furniture to have a shabby chic, vintage look so I wanted to add some distressed detail. I took a sheet of sand paper and gently rubbed it over the areas it would see natural wear and tear, like the edges and the areas that stuck out. I think this just adds a bit of extra detail to the piece.

I hardly used any of the chalk paint in the tin for this DIY project so even though it had the extra coats you still have plenty of paint for a number of other upcycling furniture projects. I think the Aldi chalk paint is great value, I would just like a few more colours and some darker shades like navy and jade greens.

 

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial on how to upcycle furniture using chalk paint. If you try the Aldi paint or upcycling with chalk paint , don’t forget to show me, I always like to see your DIY upcycled projects, tag @i_heart_maggie  for Instagram or @IHeart_Maggie on twitter. Ps the amazing gold polka plant pot is from Home Sense!

Love

Claire X