Chalk Paint Fireplace Makeover

Our master bedroom's Chalk Paint Fireplace Makeover is done.

This was a really easy makeover. Paint, sanding...bada bing, bada boom.

Chalk Paint Fireplace Makeover | Annie Sloan Paris Grey on a faux fireplace. | Easy chalk paint tutorial.

In the craziness that has been this summer, our master bedroom ended up getting a very unplanned makeover. It's not *totally* done. But, I am loving our new fireplace. See how easy it was to make over below (and check out the before pics, too).

This is a really old photo, but it gives you an idea of what the fireplace used to look like. To be clear, this fireplace is of the faux variety. I hired a friend's husband to create it for me about ten years ago when we lived in a 60+ year old home with no fireplace. We had a newborn and Santa didn't have a way to get in the house, y'all (wink).

I was also doing a small MLM business where I was constantly redecorating and having people over to show all of our fun new products (any other former Southern Living at Home friends out there?). A lot of our products were perfect for hearth areas, so I just had a fake one built. When we moved here, there was a real fireplace in the living room, but I truly couldn't part with this one...I've always loved it. The man who built it did such a great job. It had also been a flat black paint for the last ten years, too. The time had come to bust out a paint brush on this bad boy.

The above photo is even older. And y'all...that's not vinyl. I stinkin' hand-painted those letters up there. Those were the days when overhead projectors were easier to come by for a principal's wife...these days, they're a rare breed (thank goodness). My neck hurt for a month after painting these letters.

This is what the fireplace now looks like on the opposite wall...we did a complete fruit basket turnover and rearranged everything in here.

And as I mentioned, this summer makeover was totally unplanned. Amazingly, it was my husband's idea. Y'all, we had slept under the same comforter, had the same color of walls (we had painted with the same color of wall paint in three houses...what on earth?), and all of the same chachkies for thirteen years. The last time we had put any thought into our own bedroom was when we registered at Dillard's for our fancy toile comforter. We truly did put a lot of thought into our bedroom when we got married...so much so that it carried us for thirteen years and three houses. It was very, very tired. When the whole office fiasco began in the spring (wallpaper crisis...more on that in an upcoming post or ten)...it took over our lives until June when my husband was done and called a painter to hire the job out (D-O-N-E, done). While the man was here giving us an estimate on re-doing the walls in my office, my husband asked how much to add a painted master bedroom onto the whole shenanigan. My jaw about hit the floor...I mean...I paint. I paint A LOT, for crying out loud. While it was borderline offensive, I could see he was just trying to take something else off my plate (since the master bedroom had been on my to do list for a very long time). And y'all, I'm so glad he did. I can't wait to show you the whole thing. But for now...I literally just slapped some chalk paint on this thing and called it good. 'NawwhatImean?

I've said it before on here, but the reason I like chalk paint is because, more often than not, prepping is not needed (not in all cases, y'all...but most). I just gave this a good dusting. I wanted the black to show through in the weathering process, so I used a beeswax puck (click here for the one I use) on all of the edges and details. This makes the chalk paint not adhere quite as well to those areas.

Then it got two coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Grey. The color is somewhat close to the wall color in the bedroom (somewhat...but also not really. That makes total sense, right?). I honestly want to keep a really light palette of just greys and blues. The wall color is actually Sherwin Williams' Sea Salt.

Against my better judgement, I used my phone for the in-process photos (my camera was buried in the whole makeover mayhem that was all around us at this time). After my two coats dried, I lightly sanded the details, raised areas, and corners of the piece with a sanding sponge (basically all of the areas I used the beeswax puck on). This is the kind of sanding sponge I like here.

I went a little heavier on all of the molding on this piece...I just loved how it looked.

Normally, I finish my chalk paint pieces with a wax. Honestly, I've only done this one other time, but I decided to leave it alone after sanding (I did use tack cloth to remove the sanding dust). I wanted that drier, chalky look in the finished piece.