So, chalk paint. I’ve heard a lot about it the last couple years. When my daughter-in-law told me she was painting her kitchen cabinets with chalk paint, I mistook it to mean “chalkboard” paint. I was a little taken aback thinking she was going to be letting my grandkids scribble all over her kitchen cabinets. I told her I’d come help her paint and I was surprised to find out that chalk paint was just another kind of paint. She did explain to me that it was rather expensive; about $32 a quart but the big attraction is that the surface required no preparation except for a good cleaning.

A couple years ago for my birthday, my son and husband bought me my first flat screen tv for the sitting room. I’d asked for a new tv, thinking it would be in the smaller range, but when I got my present, it was a whopping 52”. It was so big (at least for me) that I didn’t have anything large enough for it to sit on so for the first week, it sat in its box on the floor. I finally got around to shopping for a tv stand and tried about four different stores before I finally found one in my price range that I didn’t hate. You notice I didn’t say “that I loved” because I didn’t find any that fit into that category. I brought it home and it’s been in my sitting room ever since and I’ve basically disliked it from the time I bought it. It has glass panels on the doors which allow anything inside on the shelves to be seen. I don’t like that. If I’m using shelves for storage, I like to have what’s inside them to be secret. Well, maybe not secret, but who wants to see the “Beggin Strips” bag or my plastic tub of dog bones I keep on the shelves, not to mention the phone books and other stuff that seldom gets used? The first thing I did was find something to cover the glass with and hit on using a material that matched another curtain I had in the room. That seemed to help for a while, but I still really disliked the piece. I finally realized what it was I wanted to do with the piece. Paint it.

Oh yes. Paint it. There is not much that is easier to make a bigger change in something than a new coat of paint. Since I decided to paint it, I decided now was the time to try the chalk paint that everyone was talking about. But me, I’m too cheap to pay $32 for a quart of paint.  I knew that I wanted to paint the tv stand the same color paint I had remaining from my kitchen cabinets so I decided to make my own chalk paint. There are a number of different chalk paint recipes out there, but I decided to use the recipe that call for Plaster of Paris. Pretty simple and Plaster of Paris was relatively cheap (less than $7 for a large container) and easy to find.

Just mix:

• 1/3 cup Plaster of Paris
• with 1/3 cup water until smooth
• add 1 cup paint (I used latex), stir to mix thoroughly

This makes for a very think paint and can be thinned with more water.

           I removed the doors and glass panes and painted three coats of paint on each piece, leaving each coat to dry before repainting (and it dries fast).  I save my old vinyl shower curtains and use them for drop cloths. Works better than some drop cloths you can buy, they are thicker and stay in place better. It covered my whole kitchen table and no worries about spilling or dripping.

I was concerned about some things I’d read about the paint being soft, but when I started to distress the paint this morning, it definitely wasn’t soft. After I finish distressing it, I may or may not add a coat of polyurethane as the finish is very matte.

I still had the problem with the clear glass and I didn’t really like what I had done before so my solution was to find a wood grain contact paper.

          Looks “not too bad”, still not exactly the look I’m going for, but the tv stand has gone from something I disliked to something I really kinda like.