DIY Chalk Paint Furniture Tutorial for Beginners

DIY Chalk Paint Furniture Tutorial for Beginners - Marly Dice (2025)

In this easy-to-follow DIY chalk paint furniture tutorial, you’ll learn how to chalk paint your wood furniture and add a distressed look to it. Follow along in this tutorial as I chalk paint two side tables and slightly distress them to create a look that I absolutely love.

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Furniture restoration is one of my FAVORITE ways to spruce up my home.

It is also one of THE BEST ways to save money. Instead of buying new, expensive furniture, you can give new life to outdated wood furniture for a fraction of the cost!

The best part about it is that, when done right, your furniture pieces can look like a really expensive piece.

I personally love painting wood light-colored tones because I feel like it always looks good. Prime example: when I painted this buffet whiteafter painting it black the first time around.

HOW TO DIY CHALK PAINT FURNITURE:

STEP 1: FIND WOOD FURNITURE WITH GOOD BONES

If you don’t already a piece of wood furniture in mind for your project, make sure to take your time and find the right furniture piece.

You want to look for a piece of furniture that is in good shape and has a structure you want.

I searched for end tables for months and months to find ones that had good bones.

In my living room, next to my gray sectional, I hadone white tray table that I was looking to upgrade. Instead of paying a fortune to get the look I wanted, my goal with this project was to revamp two old side tables into high-quality, expensive-looking pieces.

For months, I searched for side tables on Craigslist, Facebook groups, and our local Habitat for Humanity. Nothing.

Then, last week, I decided to take a peek at the furniture section in Goodwill after I dropped off some old clothes. I couldn’t believe it! I saw a side table that I loved. It had four chunky legs (score!), a drawer, and was in great shape.

But, I didn’t see its match, which was a huge bummer…until Iglanced around and spotted it. Could it be? YES! 1 point for Marly.

I immediately bought the pair of side tables and got to work planning out my new project.

STEP 2: MAKE A PLAN

This step is so important and often overlooked. You want to make sure you buy the right materials you need for the project and make a time to do the project so that when you go to do it, you have everything you need.

I always go through a planning phase before just tackling my projects. I want my pieces tolook expensive, which means I can’t cut corners in my rehab of these pieces.After I determined the perfect color for my tables and assessed the project, I bought all thematerials needed.

As far as time goes, it depends how big of a furniture piece you are tackling and how many coats of paint you need to do. If you’re tackling a similar furniture piece to what I did, you can most likely knock it out in a day.

COST BREAKDOWN

My Cost: $26.50/end table (I had some of the materials already needed)

I had some of the itemsI needed for this project already on hand, so the only things I spent money on were:

the two side tables ($24 total),
chalk paint ($16.98),
new hardware ($11.96)

That’s about $53 total, or $26.50 for each table

That’s about $53 total, or $26.50 for each table.

That’s about $53 total, or $26.50 for each table.

I’ve seen similar end tables go for over $200 a piece!

Compare those to my $27 DIY chalk paint version:

STEP 3: GATHER/BUY MATERIALS

For this project, you’ll need:

Chalked Paint (You can use any brand you like. I used this paint.)
Polyurethane (I used this poly.)
Hardware. (I used these pulls.)
Two Synthetic Brushes (You’ll need one for chalk paint and one for polyurethane.)
Sand Paper Block
Screw driver (to remove and add hardware)

STEP 4: PREPARE YOUR FURNITURE

I cannot stress enough that preparing your furniture is vital.

You’ll want to sand the wood using a sand paper block, dust off the residue and wipe down the furniture so it’s ready for painting.

Also, make sure to remove all hardware, pull out any drawers completely, and remove any doors from your furniture piece.

For this project, I lightly sandedthe tables sothe paint would adhere to the wood.

After that, I removed the hardware, dusted the tables, and wiped them down. I also removed the drawers to prepare for painting.

STEP 5: PAINT

Before you start painting, make sure to stir andnot shake your chalk paint.

It’s also important to note that it’s not recommended to use a roller when applying chalk paint. You should use a high-quality synthetic brush.

Two or three coats of chalked paint can be applied, depending on the look you want.

Make sure that you let each coat of paint dry completely before painting your next coat.

For this project, Iopted for three coats of paint.

Here’s what one of my end tables looked like after one coat of paint:

It is very transparent-looking. That is what it should look like after one coat of paint.

Do not keep painting on more layers to your wet paint to try and make it more opaque. This is the number one thing I see people do wrong when they go to paint furniture.

Make sure you let the coat of paint dry completely before adding another coat of paint.

Here is what my table looked like afterthree coats of paint:

Notice how it has a clean finish to it. That’s because I let each coat of paint dry before applying another one.

STEP 6: DISTRESS YOUR FURNITURE, IF DESIRED

If you don’t like the distressed look, you can skip this section and go straight to step 7, which is to apply the polyurethane.

If you are looking for a distressed look, this is the part where you’ll begin sanding.

Before you sand, make sure that your furniture piece is 100% dry.

When I distress furniture pieces, I like to target the edges and corners, which are the parts that would tend to distress naturally.

You can sand as much or as little as you like to let the natural wood tone show through.

I chose to keep my sanding to a minimum because I wanted just a slightly-distressed look.

STEP 7: APPLY POLYURETHANE

There is a lot of discussion surrounding whether to apply wax or polyurethane over chalked paint. You can use either.

I opted for polyurethane.

Simply use your brush to apply an even coat over the entire piece. The polyurethane I used says to allow seven days for total cure of the project.It is dry, however, after a couple hours.