Antique Painting Technique Using Annie Sloan Black Wax

Lately, I’ve had a few requests to do some custom projects. My latest project was from a lady (who is now a friend 🙂 ) who purchased a couple items, I had refinished and posted on a local vintage site.

This new friend, asked me to paint some chairs and a bench she had found for her new table.

This project was a little different in the way of…usually when I have been asked to paint something or build something, the client gives me some direction of what they want. However, Tami said, “My style is your style. I give you full liberty to paint them as you would paint your own.” I have to say this was a little nerve-wracking. What if she didn’t like it? What if it wasn’t the right colors? What if she hates the color I choose? So many doubts bombarded me, but I took it on as a challenge.

Today I would like to share with you the colors I chose and a simple, special painting technique I used.

The very first thing I had to do was sand these pieces…LOTS and LOTS of sanding. As you can see a couple of the chairs had spindles. Spindles are not fun to sand. 🙁 So after a LONG time of sanding and cleaning the furniture, I was ready to paint.

Notice how the tabletop is not a solid color? But rather, it has a black glazed finish over top gray chalk paint. Because of this I went with a solid color for the chairs. So as not to compete with the busyness of the table.

I used Cast Iron Kettle Black Repurpose Chroma Color Paint for the four chairs…

This paint was so smooth and creamy and a delight to work with. After applying 2 coats of paint, I administered 3 coats of polyurethane.

Then it was onto the bench. This was the piece I was most excited about. I absolutely loved the paint color I had chosen for this piece and couldn’t wait to see how it turned out. I painted the entire bench with Azurite Blue Repurpose Chroma Color Paint.

It was a beautiful contrast with the gray chairs. I loved it!!

However, I didn’t stop there. I wanted this piece to stand out. The Azurite Blue paint had accomplished that, BUT I wanted it to pop a little more.

After the Azurite Blue paint had dried, I rubbed on Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Black Wax over the entire bench. My technique for this was:

***Work in little sections. Approximately a foot by a foot.

***Rub on the wax, using the Annie Sloan Wax brush (or a brush similar). Really pushing into the grooves of the wood.

(Please ignore the bites taken out of my brush handle by one of my mischievous pups….Not mentioning names…

***Allow it to sit for a short time (approximately 40 seconds) and using a dry cloth, gently wipe off the wax. Keep in mind the harder you scrub the more wax you’ll remove. The lighter you scrub the less wax you’ll remove. It’s really personal preference on how dark you want areas to be. If you would like it a little darker repeat this step again. If it appears to be darker than you like, use Annie Sloan Clear Wax to take it back to its original color before you added the black wax. The clear wax almost acts as an eraser. You really can’t mess this up…which is awesome!!

***Do this over the entire piece. Add more dark in some areas. Less in others. Dark all over. However you like. Again, you can’t mess it up. It’ll be gorgeous however you do it!!