So, just what have we achieved in our lounge room make-over so far?  Well the fireplace has been the main thing and it is just gorgeous!

Then we (well read that as I requested Michael to do…) made the very pretty dark grey side table you see in the front left of the photo – this one:

 

I draughted up a quick plan after I measured our lounge and worked out rough dimensions from there, then Michael drew it up on some ply we had around, and after a few tweaks cut it out and assembled it.  Then it was simply some filler, sanding and painting J.

I painted it with Rustoleum “Chalked” paint in Charcoal.  This is the first time I have ever used chalk paint and I was very interested to see how it went on and turned out.  I was very impressed by how thick it covered the wood, though that also meant it took quite a lot of paint to cover it too – about a ¼ of a tin for this small table – approx. $10 worth of paint.

While it was drying, it turned pretty chalky-looking which I was hoping wouldn’t quite be the final finish…

…which it wasn’t.  The chalkiness went away and left a lovely, true charcoal colour.  I did add on clear wax (as is recommended for harder wearing chalked painted pieces) – you can see the difference between the waxed part of the bar and the un-waxed below.  The paint had left quite  deep-ish brush strokes (this is normal) but they were a little strong to run your hand over (for me anyway, for this piece).  Again, I put the wax on quite a bit thicker than I expected but it certainly did change it and I think it looks great!

You probably want to see it in our room? 

Warning – really bad photo – but here it is J.