When painting a piece of furniture you want to make sure all of your hard work is going to last.
Today i'm going to be testing the world-renowned Annie Sloan Chalk
Paint in a bunch of different ways to help us all out with some of our
questions.
Welcome to Hampton Your House guys, I'm so happy to have you here.
My name is Belle and if you're looking to DIY your way to a Hamptons Style house
you definitely come to the right place! I also have lots of different videos with lots
of tips and tricks so I would love to have you subscribe so you don't miss any upcoming videos,
and stick around to check out some of my other projects after this one. I made a video a few
months ago where I tested out normal Dulux paint versus chalk paint, with varying levels of surface
prep and then i put the surfaces to the test to see how they held up - I'll link to that video for
you. But today I wanted to focus on a high quality chalk paint that is widely and highly recommended,
and that is the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and Wax. I'm going to put it through its paces and I'll be
testing it on several different surfaces with different levels of prep, and then I'll put it
to the test after leaving it for a few weeks to make sure it's had time to harden to its maximum
strength. The reason I haven't tried this paint until now is because it's quite expensive and also
quite hard to find in Australia at this point. To find a stockist in your state or country visit
the Annie Sloan website - I'll link it for you below. Let's check it out - it's gonna be epic!
In my previous video I think it was fairly clear that most paint sticks pretty well to fresh
unpainted wood, so I'm just going to test three surfaces this time: a laminate chest of drawers,
the shelf of an IKEA Lack coffee table medium size, and a satin finish varnished wood drawer,
which also happens to be from IKEA. Here's the plan: using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint,
I'm going to test each of these surfaces with no prep, with sanding only, with primer only,
with sanding and primer, and also with and without Annie Sloan Wax,
and we're testing these on laminate, IKEA furniture, and previously varnished wood.
First I'm going to sand half of each test piece so we have a side for the sanding only test
and the sanding and primer test. Then we need to wipe them clean with a damp cloth.
You could also wipe over with white vinegar to get any oils off the surface.
Next I need to divide each piece up into sections and label them.
Now it's time to put some primer on our primer squares.
I'm using a spray-on plastics primer for the IKEA table shelf and laminate
chest of drawers, and a white water-based primer-sealer-undercoat for the varnished wood.
Here comes the fun part - it's time to test out my Annie Sloan Chalk Paint!
Today I'm using the colour Chicago Grey. As per instructions on the can, I'm tipping it upside
down to give it a shake before use, and yes, my paint stirring stick has gone walkabout, so
I'm stirring my paint with a chopstick! The paint seems to go on very nicely on the varnished wood.
The first coat on the laminate looks slightly
streaky but it should even out with the second coat.
You often see people painting Annie Sloan chalk paint in all directions. I asked about this at
the stockist where I bought the paint and they said, painting that way was to achieve
a textured vintage finish, but you can paint it in straight lines with the grain if you prefer,
for a smoother, more modern look which is what I decided to do. I'm also using a normal paintbrush
which she said was fine too - Annie Sloan now sells normal looking flat
brushes as well as the rounded, chalk paint brushes that you've probably seen,
and again, the flat brush and painting with the grain will help you to achieve a more modern look.
On the IKEA Lack table shelf, the paint did appear to go on the most
smoothly with the best coverage on the sample with sanding and primer.
Time for the second coat! It says on the Annie Sloan website that you can do your second
coat in one to three hours depending on your climate. I ended up re-coating after 24 hours.
You can see that the paint evens out very nicely once it has the second coat
on.
I left all the paint samples for a few days before
applying the wax just to be sure it was perfectly dry.
Time to apply the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Wax. You can apply with a brush or a soft cloth - I'm
using a piece of an old flannelette sheet. I did two thin coats of wax on all the test pieces,
and I left them to dry for over 24 hours in between coats just because I didn't get
back to it sooner - I think it's fine to do the second coat sooner though.
On the tin it says it may take between 5 and 21 days for the wax to cure
and harden to full durability, so i've left all my pieces for over three weeks
before doing the durability tests. So far i'm quite impressed with the
coverage and durability of the paint! Let's see how it goes in the testing
phase.
On our laminate chest of drawers, the sample with no prep and no wax has passed the fingernail test,
and strangely on the side with wax, I actually scratched some of the wax off
and it ended up under my fingernail, and that was after leaving it for more than three weeks
to harden. On the side with no wax, the lego men didn't chip the paint but did leave blue marks,
and on the side with wax, lego men scratch some of the wax off too.
The keys made some small chips on both sides of the no-prep sample,
and the jug took some chunks out, but overall it held up quite well.
On the sanding sample, fingernails went well on both sides and no wax came up,
and it also passed the lego man test.
The keys made a few very tiny marks on both sides,
and the jug did surprisingly well and only made a few small dents.
On the side with just primer, it passed the fingernail test and lego man on both sides,
a few tiny chips with the keys, and the jug of course made a few marks
but it showed less damage than the test with no prep at all.
And on the sample with primer and sanding, it past the fingernail test and lego man test with
flying colours, the keys made one tiny chip on the side with wax and the jug made a few small marks,
so I tried it a few more times - it held up really well!
Next we have the IKEA Lack coffee table sample.
The test with no prep passed the fingernail and lego man tests,
got a few small chips with the keys and big, clearly visible chips from the metal jug.
The sanding sample passed the first two tests, got some minor chips from the keys
and chipped with the metal jug, but not too
badly. The primer only sample also passed the fingernails and lego men, had some smaller
chips from the keys, and more visible chips from the jug, and the sanding and primer sample did
slightly better with the jug - my camera dropped out so I recorded part of this sample again.
I feel like overall, the sanding made more difference than the primer on the IKEA table.
Now for the varnished wood sample. Fingernails were fine on the no-prep side and so was lego man,
although he kicked up a little bit of wax. With the keys, paint chipped on the side
without wax but was better on the side with wax, and paint chipped off with the jug.
On the primer sample it passed fingernails and lego man,
and the keys just made it a few dents on the side without wax - the side with wax did pretty well,
then I ended up attacking it with the jug - the side with the wax definitely held up better.
The sanding sample past fingernails and lego man. the keys only made a
few surface scratches and the jug just dented the wood but didn't really take the paint off.
And the sanding and primer sample did fine with the fingernail test,
just had blue marks from the lego man, mostly on the side with no wax,
surface scuffs but no chips from the keys, and the jug did amazingly well - while it made some
dents in the wood, it didn't chip any paint off, and i hit it a bunch of times just to make sure!
So the sanding sample and the sanding and primer sample had similar results with the jug.
All of the samples did pretty well with the fingernail test and the lego man test, so overall,
I would say that this paint stood up to what you might call normal wear and tear without sanding or
priming, but if you need it to be extra durable, you might consider doing some more prep steps.
With laminates and IKEA furniture like the Lack coffee table shelf, I would say it's worthwhile
doing some prep, even if you just quickly rough it up with sandpaper and then wipe it over,
I feel like the paint will last better over time, especially with rough wear,
like if you have kids or pets, or it's in a high traffic area. Annie Sloan herself said in a video
about painting laminate that if the surface is shiny, she would give it a little bit of a sand
before painting - I'll link that video below. And for the varnished wood sample, primer didn't seem
to add much to the durability of the surface but the sanding step did, so while you can paint the
previously varnished wood without sanding, I personally would still give it at least a light
sand to raise the grain a bit to help the paint to soak in, to help it pass the metal jug test!
If you'd like to paint with chalk paint I would definitely recommend getting the best quality
chalk paint you can afford, like Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, to make sure you can get a durable finish.
Another great thing about Annie Sloan paint is that it has no harsh chemicals or toxic fumes,
so it's safe for painting in less ventilated areas. Well I really hope you've enjoyed this
test and found it helpful for your DIY projects. I would love for you to stick around and subscribe,
check out some of my other videos, and pop on over to see my other paint testing video if you
haven't seen that one yet. All the very best with your painting projects, be sure to leave
a comment below to let me know how you go, and I'll catch you again in my next video. Bye guys!