HOW TO: Painting with Annie Sloan (ASCP)

This was my first piece of furniture I ever painted. I used Annie Sloan French linen for the body of the chair. and I white-washed in old-orche. In order to tie it all together, I also painted the fabric in old ochre. To paint the fabric, I simply watered down the paint and applied with a brush. I finished the entire piece off with Annie Sloan clear wax. It you would like a better tutorial for painting fabric with chalk paint, stay tuned for a pair of wingback chairs I will have finished soon!!!

HOW TO: Repair veneer / White Wash finish

This is by far one of my best pieces to date. I bought this poor beat up beauty on Craigslist for my kitchen.  It needed a lot of work, so if any of you have pieces out there like this... pay attention!!

As you can see, the veneer in the piece was lifting... way worse then you can even see. So I started by peeling back everything was lifting and added wood filler.

The instructions on the packaging are pretty self explanatory. But I did it in multiple coats so I could get a smoother finish. I also used very fine sand paper to avoid scratching the original veneer.

Then I painted the entire piece in homemade chalk paint. I chose "Mariner" by Martha Stewart. 

I then added a lighter blue to the details. I knew I wasn't done yet... but as you can see... This piece in is my kitchen, so it had to remain "functional" as long as possible. So I added the knobs on it, and went to bed ;) 

I decided I wanted to white-wash the piece so I watered down some homemade chalk paint. I added it to the side first to check the consistency. I ended up added about 1 1/2 cups of water. As you can see, I noticed that if I applied to much pressure, I started to remove the bottom layers of paint. No fear... I kind of embraced it and It is one of the things I love most about this piece. 

If you haven't attempted white-washing... it is simple... apply the watered down paint as shown below

Wipe off immediately...

Once the white washing was complete, I popped off the top. Because, lets face it... it was ugly. Rather then spending time on trying to recover it, I started from scratch.

I then stained it in my always favorite, Jacobean by MinWax. 

And VOILA! She is done.

Look closely... you can still see where I repaired the veneer... but thats okay. It's character.