Experience creates the opportunity for expertise. My experiences with renovating or building homes have made me an expert when it comes to tips and tricks when painting. I want to share what I have learned with you.

Tip #1: Buy quality paint

Quality paint not only means quality of the actual product but also the customer service. For our current home, we have used Benjamin Moore paint. This choice means we must go to the specific Benjamin Moore store in our area. I’m not upset about this considering the customer service we have received during our home renovation. Buying paint from a box store means you are at the mercy of whichever employee may or may not be working in the paint section at that particular time. In my experience, the employees at our local Benjamin Moore store have gone above and beyond to be helpful.

For the majority of our home we selected White Dove for our interior walls and Simply White for our trim. For accent rooms such as the laundry room, we selected Blue Heather. All of our paint colors for our current home are from Benjamin Moore. You can read more about our master bathroom here.

Tip #2: Buy the right type of paint

When painting ceilings, use a flat paint. For walls use eggshell and for windows, interior doors, and trim use semi-gloss. The types of paint determine the shine and level of difficulty when it comes to clean up. Flat paint is the most difficult to get dirt off of; however, you typically do not need to worry about getting your ceilings dirty. Also, you really do not want your ceiling to shine. For walls, eggshell gives a nice durability and a little shine but very minimal. The window trim, baseboards, crown molding, and interior doors should be in a semi-gloss finish. This finish is a high shine and helps with easy clean up of spills or fingerprints.

Tip #3: Buy quality brushes

I will go even farther and say, “buy Purdy paint brushes”. A good quality paint brush such as Purdy will last longer and give a better paint finish. When you factor in longer usage of your brushes then you really are not spending a fortune. They will outlast the cheaper competition. I like to use a slanted, small width Purdy brush for all my cutting in and trim work.

I bleached my furniture! Who does that? Shouldn’t bleach be avoided at all cost? Well, I had an idea and I carried it out this week. While social media has its flaws, one thing I love about it…inspiration is to be found in spades. With the typing of a specific hashtag on Instagram or a few keywords on Pinterest, you can find quick, how-to’s.

Some Inspiration for Bleached Furniture

Run, don’t walk, to follow @vintageporch if you do not already. She is amazing and funny! Her feed is filled with beautiful pieces that I would like recreate for my home. A quick search of #bleachedfurniture can turn up some beauties like this or this .

Steps to Bleach Your Furniture

Outlining steps to bleach furniture has actually been a work in progress for me. Not knowing what exactly I’m doing leads me to try a variety of steps. At the beginning of this week, I simply took a paint brush and standard bleach and brushed it onto my desk. While it did lighten the furniture a bit, it was not the light color I desired.

Once my desk, the furniture item I bleached, was dry, I sanded the entire desk lightly then wiped it with a clean cloth. After wiping with a clean cloth, I applied another coat of bleach and allowed it to dry in the sun. Again, the desk was lighter but still not the look I am trying to achieve. You know what they say, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”

I believe after using acetone to strip down my furniture, I applied three different coats of bleach to the desk and sanding between coats. Once the final coat of bleach was dried, I washed the entire piece with water. My final step, I put a coat of clear wax on the desk in order to seal it. As with my chairs I painted last week, I used the Waverly Clear Wax sealer to give a final coat to my desk.

My Philosophy

I have jokingly told other women my spiritual gift is to make them feel better about themselves – meaning, I usually do not do a task to perfection or there is room for improvement. My philosophy with my home decor is, “use what you have or get creative with a frugal project”. I share this to concede there are better pieces of bleached furniture out there. However, as this is my first attempt at bleaching furniture, I am proud of my progress.

The Results for Bleached Furniture

Well, learning as you go has its own set of pros and cons. Cons are: it is time consuming to figure out what you are doing. The pros are: you are learning a skill you will not easily forget. After working a little each day on this desk, I am excited to show you the results. This desk will be used to hold our daily mail and bills.

Now, what type of chair/stool should I use at this desk? Let me know in the comments. I’m thinking some type of stool would be nice. What are your thoughts? You can see how I previously styled this space here. There was a small end table between the chairs; however, now I have this desk in the space.

Three easy steps to a furniture refresh with chalk paint sounds too good to be true. In fact, for years I have had friends talk to me about this paint but I thought “who has the time?” and “that will take too long”. I am glad to share I was wrong on both counts. Putting my style on a set of chairs was as easy as 1, 2, 3. Rolling up my sleeves and giving DIY projects a try are becoming more of a habit for me. Check out my first shared DIY here then read on for my easy steps to a furniture refresh.

Step 1. Clean your furniture

Our area has a few community Facebook groups. Thankfully, a set of four chairs was placed up for grabs in one of these sites. Four matching chairs for free? I’m on it! (Actually, my husband went and picked them up – he’s the best!) Borrowing from my wonderful cleaning mentor, GoCleanCo, I placed one teaspoon of Tide into two cups of hot water and scrubbed down each chair. Cleaning and drying your furniture helps paint to stay on it.

Step 2. Paint with Chalk Paint

After cleaning your furniture, paint with chalk paint. Again, I have been told about the joys of chalk paint but until this week, I was a skeptic. It IS amazing. My neighbor gifted me the remaining portions of her Chalky Chics. At my neighbor’s recommendation, I ordered the chalk paint and wax brush set below. (*as an Amazon Associate, I may earn a commission from any valid Amazon links*)

Using the larger brush, two coats of paint was applied. Drying time for chalk paint is relatively quick. I was able to paint all four chairs within an afternoon.

Step 3. Wax

With the smaller, wax brush, apply quick strokes of clear wax to your furniture. The beauty of chalk paint is it’s design is to be shabby chic – meaning perfection is not the desired result. I love the charm of some natural “distressing” to the furniture. I purchased a chalk paint clear wax coat from Walmart for only $6.54! What a deal! The wax helps seal in the paint and prevents it from flaking or scratching off in the future. For the brand I used, waiting 24 hours to buff the wax with a lint free cloth was recommended.

The Result

I am so pleased with my “new” furniture. My sunroom work station had a mismatch of chairs. Now, I have a beautiful set of black chairs that make the room so inviting. Who knows? Maybe I will get more work done!

What do you think? Have you used chalk paint before? What are your thoughts? If you have yet to use it, I strongly encourage you to join in the fun! For around $25 I got a beautiful new space!