My dear dear friend, Julie had mentioned to me about her mom antiquing furniture and being crafty. So I reached out to her and got all the details from her sweet mama! She had actually taken a class about it at a college so in my eyes, she's basically a pro.
Let me break down your two easiest options:
1. You can go on amazon.com and search chalk paint. This is the most expensive way but still economical if you buy knock of furniture and need a specific color. (This is what I did, because I NEEDED Robin Egg Blue in my mind!)
2. You can always go to Walmart and get their Waverly Chalk paint for less than $6. They have way less color options which is why I went with Amazon.
Regardless of option 1 or 2, you will need Johnson's Paste Wax to be your finishing coat!
I will now break down the process I went through to do my night stands.
1. I took them on my back porch which is covered, yet has good aeration.
2. I Remove handles & used painters tape to separate the top section which I was keeping the rustic wood look from the rest which I wanted to paint.
3. Clean and dry furniture. YOU DONT HAVE TO SAND WOOOOO!!!!
4. Paint first coat quickly, as it dries fast. (I used a brush that was deemed for chalk painting that I found on amazon.)
5. When completely dry, paint second coat and let dry over night.
6. Distress! This is the fun artistic part to me. I used sand paper to get my desired look and you can also use the rod of a screw driver to distress as well!
7. Apply wax to the entire painted surface using squares of an old t shirt, or in my case I used the chalk painting brush that was also for applying wax.
8. Then use a clean old t-shirt to buff, basically just rubbing in circular motions over where the wax was applied.
9. 24 hours later you do your second coat of wax, and second buffing.
10. You are done! You may want to let it sit outside for another 24 hours because of the smell of the wax.
Before:
After:
