How to Paint Fabric with Chalk Paint the Easy Way

Today I'm going to show you the easiest way to give upholstered dining room chairs a fresh new look. Now if your chairs are like mine and have one too many stains or watermarks then this video is for you. We're going to use chalk paint to update these upholstered chairs and give them a brand new look. The first thing you're going to want to do to protect your chair and the fabric is to take painter's tape and just tape around the chair and the fabric so wherever the fabric meets the chair just put some painter's tape. This is going to protect the chair from getting paint on it or any spills or drips that come from painting the fabric. First step in painting your fabric chairs with chalk paint is to fill a jar of water and take your paintbrush and just apply water with the brush onto the fabric and you want to get the fabric totally dampened. You want the fabric to be able to absorb the paint when you paint the fabric with the chalk paint so you're just covering the fabric up with the water. You could also use a spray bottle to saturate or to dampen the fabric. I like using the paintbrush. I kind of have a little bit more control over where the water goes. Here it is when it's all dampened. It definitely looks a little bit worse. You can see a lot of the stains and water marks more so now it's ready to receive the paint. Now you're ready to start painting the fabric with chalk paint and so you're going to take a painting tray and add water to the bottom portion of the tray and then you're going to pour chalk paint into the top portion where my paintbrush is here and as you paint you're just going to add a little bit of water at I would say about a 75 to 25 percent mixture with paint being the primary additive of the mixture. Just add a little bit of water as you paint to thin the chalk paint and then you're going to just cover the fabric with this thinned down chalk paint and the most important thing is just to get a nice even coat as you're painting. So again you're not adding too much water to the paint, just enough so that it is slightly diluted and then just go ahead and paint that fabric with the chalk paint getting a nice even coat. And while you're applying the first coat of chalk paint don't be overly concerned if you can still see some of the stains or the water marks or if you're doing a pattern fabric if you can still see some of the pattern of the fabric. We're planning to do a second coat on these chairs so once this first coat dries then the second coat really should hide a lot of the stains or patterns that are shining through still. So I wasn't overly concerned on making sure that the stains were completely covered just more on putting a slightly thinner layer than I would normally on furniture with the diluted chalk paint and then just making sure that I got a nice even coat and then I will show you that even after the first coat you still could see some stains on these chairs but the second coat covered them and there were they were no longer visible after that second coat. So don't worry too much if you can still see things after the first coat. After waiting a couple of hours I went back to my chair and I felt the fabric to see if it was dry and this chair is feeling pretty dry to touch so I'm ready to start applying the second coat on this chair. Now for the second coat you don't have to wait till the chair is a hundred percent dry but you want it to be pretty dry so that when you touch it paint isn't coming up onto your hand. It should be pretty dry so this actually took about four to six hours for it to dry. You could also leave it overnight and then do the second coat in the morning. So I'm going to just start on the second coat with the same process I used on the first coat just diluting the chalk paint a little bit and then brushing an even coat across the fabric on the chair and again this will cover up hopefully all the stains and the water marks and the pattern completely. So the second coat should do a pretty good job of covering everything that's left on the chair shining through and you really don't want to apply many more coats onto the chair because that will just probably add to the chair ending up being a little more crispy or crunchy with the paint. So two coats of paint is probably all you are going to want to use. If you do need to use a third coat you might want to sand with sandpaper in between and brush off some of that dust just to soften the chair a little bit but just continue on until the fabric is covered with chalk paint and you have a nice clean coat. Then just wait for the chairs to dry completely and at this point you could be done if you want to soften the fabric use a 220 grit sandpaper or sanding block and just go across the surface of the fabric. This will soften the chairs brush off any dust and then you can just apply a regular clear wax like you would to furniture and that will seal the chairs for you so that none of the paint comes off and that's all there is to painting fabric with chalk paint. It's so easy, saves your chairs, saves you time and money and gives you a beautiful result. If you have any questions or comments feel free to let me know down below or if you have any projects that you're working on I would love to hear that as well in the comments below. So thank you for being here and we'll see you next time!