Yes you read that right! I painted upholstery using chalk paint. I bet ya didn’t know that was possible! It’s pretty awesome too! I’ll share with you the 4 easy steps so you can do it yourself.
I snagged this chair from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. It had nice upholstery and beautiful lines, but it was dark and boring. The maroon fabric blended with with cherry wood. So I got to work. The chair started off looking like this:
Step 1: clean the upholstery. I have and upholstery cleaner so I used that.
Step 2: wet the fabric. I used a spray bottle filled with water and doused the chair until all of the fabric was saturated.
Step 3: water down some chalk paint. I used 1/2 water, 1/2 paint for my mixture. Make sure you use a paint color that is similar in tone to the fabric that is already on the chair. If you try to cover dark fabric with white paint it just won’t work.
Step 4: paint the watered down chalk paint onto the damp fabric. Allow to dry.
Repeat steps 2-4 until you achieve the desired coverage.
It took me 4 or 5 coats to get it even. You can see that the detail of the fabric is still present and gives it some texture, just the color has changed. Then I painted the legs with my Amy Howard Home One Step Paint. I tried not to get it into the cracks and crevices of the wood because I wanted the detail to stand out. Now it is in my antique booth waiting for its new home! (If you want to read about my antique booth you can do so here and here.)
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