There is a trend right now for painting old furniture to give a shabby chic effect. There are many people out there doing this professionally but if you want to you can also get similar results on your own old and worn furniture.

The way to paint old furniture is to use chalk paint. There are two main manufacturers of this kind of paint – Annie Sloan, which seems to be the most popular make at the moment, and Autentico which is slightly lagging behind. Both paints come in a range of colours so that you have a great choice of matching in your revamped furniture.

One thing you do need to look out for though is the possibility that you might need to put an undercoat on the furniture you are painting. One of the misconceptions of painting with chalk paint is that you can paint on anything. Well, some dark wood furniture in particular will bleed through if you just paint on top of it. Both manufacturers also have an undercoat/sealant that you can use but you can also try using something like PVA. A lot of painting furniture is to do with trial and error, so try and paint a hidden part of the furniture you have first to see if it needs sealing.

You should not need to sand the furniture beforehand as the whole point of the chalk paint is so that you can just paint it straight on. If you do sand down the furniture first then you could just use a standard primer and paint and that will save you a lot of money.

Once you have applied the chalk paint to the furniture you will also need to seal it with some wax and again the 2 manufacturers supply their own wax products. If you want an ‘aged’ look to your furniture then apply a dark wax over a light coloured paint.

Annie Sloan paints are generally only available from appointed suppliers, some of which sell it online but Autentico paint can be bought from Amazon: