Chalk Painted Chair: A Leap of Faith

It was a leap of faith to paint that first stroke of chalk paint on the chair.  Although, in honesty I do have to say the chair was in pretty rough shape so if it had not turned out it wouldn’t have been a huge loss.  The before picture of this chair is gross yet brings back memories for me.  This was my first “real” chair.  It was in my first apartment with a matching navy, burgundy, and teal plaid sofa.  Oh the 90’s…the jewel colors were so big.  I sat many a night in this chair studying, watching TV and basically feeling grown up in my converted garage apartment.  In fact, my apartment was so cold most of the year that I sat in this chair with a space heater pointed right at me and my feet tucked up underneath me just to keep warm.  I don’t miss those days at all.

Here is the “before” with my son helping me put some water on the fabric (more on that in a minute).

As you can see the arms of the chair were beyond salvage.  The color was worn right off of the fabric from so much scrubbing of the fabric and hands rubbing on the end of the arm.  The teal color was also a bit jarring and not really the feel I am going for in this new house.

In hindsight, I probably should have slipcovered this chair but I wanted to try the chalk paint technique out.  I will say that chalk paint on a tufted chair is not easy and I wouldn’t really recommend it as a candidate for chalk paint.  That said, here is how I accomplished this transformation.

1.  Start with wetting the fabric down with either a spray bottle or a two-year old who wants to “paint” with water.

2.  Put on a thin coat of chalk paint (I used a mixture of 1/2 cup of chalk paint with 1/2 cup of water) and try not to panic because it will look downright awful and you will think you have utterly ruined the chair.  You haven’t.  It will be okay.

3.  Some people sand after the first coat is dry.  I chose not to.

4.  Keep layering thin layers of the chalk paint mixture on the chair until you can’t see the old fabric through the paint anymore.

5.  After I was finished layering on all of the paint and letting it dry, I then went in with a lightweight sanding block and gave it a quick sanding.  This will make the fabric feel less stiff and make it feel more like fabric.

6.  Wipe it down to get any residue off

7.  Use a soft wax to brush on a think layer of wax.  Let the wax dry for about 15 minutes and then buff it off.  The chair will feel like leather/vinyl.  It doesn’t feel like a fabric chair but wouldn’t fool anyone into thinking it was leather up close.

It will keep the same texture that it had.  In my case, the fabric had some texture to it that gave it a fake silk Shantung look.  That texture remained after the painting.

Overall I like the effect.  I needed a chair to tuck into a bay window.  It hardly ever is sat upon.  I am planning to buy matching chairs for this bay window but for now it serves the purpose.  I would highly recommend chalk painting a chair and am looking for a chair well suited for it.  I believe a chair that doesn’t have any tufting and doesn’t have upholstered arms would be perfect.  I also think this would be a great option for kitchen chairs that have a fabric seat because it is very easy to clean.  This project was time-consuming because I had to wait for the paint to dry between layers.  It took about three days start to finish to do this project.  Most of that was because of all the tufting.

Try it on something!  You will be happy you did!

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