Puddles & Tea: Chalk Painted Windsor Dining Room Table and Chairs

Our house has a dining space between the kitchen and living room. Basically the breakfast nook, though right now it's our only dining space. We had a formal dining room in our previous home, and it was used for meals probably once a year. This home also has a room intended as a formal dining, it's a pretty nice room with good windows. But as we downsized homes, I needed a space for my sewing room and office. So for now, our breakfast nook is our dining room, and homework hub. Our dining furniture is around 10 years old, we bought it before kids. It's seen quite a bit of abuse from them, there are marker stains and some dings and gouges, and frankly I'm just ready to have a new look.

In my quest to lighten and brighten this house in the woods, I decided to simply paint it white. I did consider more Duck Egg or even Provence. However I needed to actually pick up some paint for this project, not having enough on hand. I ended up buying a new brand of Chalk paint to try out.

Country Chic chalk paint. They have a ton of really cute colors.. including a more "pink" pink (Annie Sloan has a more salmon pink) They also do seasonal "limited edition" colors. They tend to run about $10 cheaper a can, locally, than AS paint. They are made in Canada.

I started with my chairs. I painted two in one day. I wiped down the chairs and scrubbed off any sticky bits. I didn't sand or prep. I usually don't with AS, and I wanted to see how this paint would preform. I found that I had to wait a bit longer between coats with this paint. It has a different feel, it's a bit thinner and kind of slippery. I ended up putting on three coats to get a sold covering, however the paint has a much smoother feel and look than AS. You could almost go without sanding if like. I wanted to distress a bit to allow some black through.. this is were there is a big difference between this paint and AS. I usually lightly sand AS before wax, and it turns to powder and distresses easy with a sanding block. I tried the same on this paint and I really had to put elbow grease into it to get it to show any black at all. So the You Tube tutorials say to use a wet cloth.. well I wet a cloth and the strangest thing about this paint is when you get it wet it kind of turns back into paint... so it kinda jells up after wetting but still wasn't easy to just rub off. I ended up wetting my foam sanding block and then scrubbing quite hard.. it would distress...but it was hard to predict how it would react. Some places I hardly wet and I would get a mass of paint removed, others I scrubbed forever and hardly any came off. In the end I actually ended up with a very "chippy" look. It looks good...however I usually go for more of a "rubbed" effect.

Here is a painted -vs- unpainted shot.

I decided to leave the cherry top and seats, for now. The wood color compliments the kitchen.

I't took me two days for the chairs. I would do one set a day. I wanted to make sure they were ready to go by the time the kids got home and needed to use them. I put two coats on the table the first day and a another coat the second day and then used the Country Chic wax to protect the paint. I'm a bit worried on how they will hold up around food and drinks, being that they re-liquefy when wet... but hopefully the wax will be a good hardener. The wax, by the way, is natural and non-petrol based. It has no smell at all and though it's a solid, you rub your brush around on it... then work it into the wood. You can see it go on with a nice sheen and I buffed with a bit of scrap flannel. It feels silky smooth.