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We have done a lot of updates to our Great Room since moving a couple of years ago. (In case you missed it, a write-up of our phenomenal experience working with Havenly is here.) And with a lot of time at home recently, I’ve really geared up on the home projects!
Today I wanted to show you how I updated our inherited dining room set with chalk paint, taking it from the 1970s to the 2020s! Here’s what the set looked like before the day we moved into our house:
Original dining room set when we moved in
First things first, this is a solid, well-made set that has some sentimental value, as it used to belong to Paul’s grandparents. It consists of a small buffet, a large hutch, a dining table, and cane-backed chairs (not pictured above, but you’ll see them soon!). It meant more to us to update this family set than to buy something new. And since I’m always up for a DIY project, I knew that once armed with some good chalk paint and new hardware, I could make this set into exactly what I wanted that would better fit our style! Buckle up and read on to see how I made this into a custom set that I’m so very proud of that has put the finishing touches on our Great Room!
Before version of the hutch, in all its 1970s glory.
The Vision
First off, let’s discuss the vision. As I mentioned before, I worked with a Havenly designer to help create a plan for our Great Room. She helped me see how this dining set could be updated and confirmed for me that a coat of white paint and black hardware would really give it that modern farmhouse vibe I was coveting. She also had the great suggestion to lose the doors on the front of the hutch to make the piece not only more inviting, but more modern as well. Here’s the 2d layout she provided me with which I fell in love with!
Havenly mockup of the dining room
Making it a reality
Here are the tools that I used to make this vision a reality:
A quick note about the chalk paint I chose:
I really did my homework here, and in the end, went with Rust-Oleum for a few reasons: first, Rust-Oleum offers a Protective Topcoat that is not wax, which I appreciated. While redoing this set was fun, I don’t have any plans to touch anything up with another coat anytime soon…that includes replacing the topcoat! I read that with other chalk paint brands on the market, the wax would need to be replaced every year or so (depending on how often the piece is used). No thanks! 😊 Secondly, this paint comes both in a can and as a spray in all colors. This gave me some great flexibility to get into the nooks and crannies with the spray paint (like the caning and rails of the chairs), while also getting to use the paintbrush on the larger flat areas with the more cost-effective and smoother quarts of paint. Overall, chalk paint was a great choice for this project, as it gave me the modern farmhouse vibe, distresses easily, doesn’t have a strong scent, and dries quickly. Most of these pieces took me about a weekend or two to complete.
First pass of chalk paint on the chairs
My overall process
To be honest, I probably overthought this process quite a bit before starting. If it weren’t for my parents offering to come help with the first day of painting, I might still be thinking about it. Do as I say and not as I did here: just get started! Chalk paint is so forgiving, and is so easy to do! I’m only sorry that I didn’t start this project sooner, because I love the results!!
I removed all doors, cushions, and hinges with my trusty drill. I kept track of each piece by marking it with either a pencil, sharpie, or marked a ziploc bag filled with the various screws and hinges. It really helped at the end when putting everything back together!
Since I planned to update the pulls on the doors, and the holes of the new pulls were different, I used the wood filler to fill in the existing screw holes for the old pulls. This wood filler worked great, as it goes on pink and then turns white when it’s dry. I put these aside to dry while I got to work on redoing the base.
Wood filler time!
Back to the painting of the wood: I used my mouse sander (and occasionally a single sheet of sandpaper for things like the rounded pieces of the chairs) to roughly sand the piece. I didn’t go overboard here, maybe 3 minutes per piece. It probably was a step that could have been skipped, but I felt the paint adhered a bit better this way, and was a good way to get the years of use stripped off. Plus, I was going for a bit more of a distressed look, anyway and didn’t want the paint to go on TOO perfectly 😁.
Mouse sander in action on the buffet
I used some hot water and a rag to go over the freshly sanded pieces, removing the dust and anything else that might get in the way of the paint sticking to the wood. I then allowed the piece to dry completely.
I finalized the prep work by taping off where I didn’t want paint, like the insides of the buffet, or around the windows of the hutch. I really liked this green Frog Tape, as it seemed to pull up easier (without taking the paint!) than the typical blue painting tape.
Green frog tape on the top of the hutch worked great!
Then I got to painting! The beauty of chalk paint is that it’s super forgiving. I learned that you don’t need to be shy here — you can always add another coat or sand it down to start again if needed. I put one coat on, and after it dried, added another coat. I did about two coats per piece in pretty quick succession, but there were a few parts where I had to touch it up with a third coat.
Before
After the first coat
After the base white dried completely, I got the sander back out to do my light distressing. I went around the corners where normal wear would typically happen. I also ran the sander over the flat spaces too, just to flatten any random drops or clumps of paint if needed. When I was happy with the level of distressing, I went over everything with a rag dipped in hot water once more to get all that distressing dust off. I let it dry completely.
Next up, I added the clear topcoat. I noticed the clear in the can was a bit more susceptible to drips, so it took some time to get used to the new consistency of this paint, but after a few minutes, adding a consistent protective coat over everything was a breeze. After it was all painted, I waited over a week before I placed anything of any heft on the pieces to make sure the topcoat was completely cured.
I decided to spray paint the old hinges an updated matte black color to match the new pulls, and did this by placing them on some cardboard and spraying away! They came out great, and it saved some resources, as I never had to buy new ones, nor did I have to drill new hinge holes. The existing screws were dark enough and wouldn’t really be seen, so I just reused them without spray painting them.
I also made a spur-of-the-moment decision at this stage and painted right over the purple-striped fabric of the old seat cushions of the chairs. It was an experiment that seemed to work out fine (despite not having proper fabric-specific paint!) I placed the cushions on some cardboard and sprayed two black and painted two white with the paint I already had for the rest of the set. One day I’ll replace the seat cushions completely, but I was torn on what color to go with. I now have an even more custom set with eclectic chairs that I love. I figure I’ll live with them for a bit until I decide what color fabric I want long-term. (The jury’s still out there!)
Original chairs in all their purple glory!
Freshly painted chair cushions in white and black (a temporary fix for now that we love!)
Finally, when everything was dry, I began adding the pieces back together (this is when the well-marked ziploc bags of screws were a lifesaver!). Paul helped me move the larger pieces back inside — these furniture sliders were a godsend, especially for the large hutch!
Completed hutch, all refinished!
Here are the finished pieces as they look in our great room. What do you think?!
Buffet before and after
Hutch before and after
The only other thing I’m still mulling over is whether to paint the legs of the table white…that may be the final touch that I’ll save for a rainy day. (Literally…I’m not moving that table anywhere…it’s heavy!) But I also don’t want to do something too trendy that I’ll regret later, so I’ll love on it like this for a while longer and decide one day in the future! Isn’t that part of the fun of decorating your own home?!
Stay tuned, as next time I’ll be sharing what I did with the large doors to the hutch after removing them! Hint: they turned into some great, custom, layered artwork for the wall which I love!