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TV Stand Makeover with DIY Chalk Paint

We have wonderful family members who think of us when they're getting rid of stuff and it's really helped us to furnish our home without breaking the bank. But sometimes the items aren't exactly our style so whaddaya do? Paint is a terrific way to make over a piece of furniture and make it more your style!

My parents gave us their old TV stand when they moved. We didn't have anything in our downstairs family room so it gave us a workable set up for kid TV viewing. The TV stand used to have a top section as well, that we decided not to use.
Not bad looking, but the orange-y wood laminate is not my favorite, and the basement is already dark so I thought I'd lighten it up. After I made the chalkboard paint for the tree slice project, I made some more with a paint sample of Sherwin William's Sea Salt.

Before I could paint, I needed to fill in the holes on the TV stand where the top section used to connect.

I just used spackle, I'm sure wood filler would've been more "correct" but that's what I had, so that's what I used! The spackle was nice because it changes colors from purple to white as it dries, so you know when you can sand.


Once the spackle was dry, I sanded the entire top, and primed it with Kilz Klear. Then it was ready to be painted. I used the leftover black chalk paint from the tree slice chalkboard. I had to do two coats.



It looked good at this point but I was willing to keep going with the Sea Salt base. So I sanded and primed the base, after removing the hardware. Then I applied the Sea Salt chalk paint. I had to do two coats on the base as well.



Now all that was left was sealing the paint. On almost all of the chalk paint furniture makeovers I've read, they used furniture wax to seal the paint. I don't have that and I didn't want to buy it, so I went with Polycrylic yet again. HERE's a great blog post about the pros and cons of each. It went on very good on the base, but not so much on the top! It left weird stroke lines, which don't look bad, but it wasn't what I was expecting. Especially since it went on smooth on the base! I think it kinda looks rustic distressed maybe? Or is that wishful thinking?!



And here's the final shot with the TV where it belongs! ( Aren't the flowers beautiful? Ben brought them home from work. They smelled divine!)



It took several nights since I could only work on it when the kids were in bed but it was worth it. Definitely more eye catching and interesting than the orange before! It also gave me confidence to do more furniture painting projects in the future. If it doesn't work out - you can always paint over it! 

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