First off, happy 2019 to everyone! It has been a whirlwind of a year, from renovating our old house, to renovating our new farmhouse, life has been flying by for us with projects up the ying yang! I am happy to be sitting down for a moment and writing about one of my many projects I have accomplished lately. The one I have been asked about most…painting our piano! This blog post, in no shape or form is a professional “how-to” because I totally winged it in hopes of getting the look I had imagined in my head. Let me tell you, I bit off probably more than I can chew but overall I am happy with the outcome! If you are thinking about chalk painting your piano (or really any piece of furniture for that matter) just know you need to put a good chunk of time and dedication into it. Overall, this probably took me about a week, and that was with me putting a few hours a day into it. I have yet to finish the music rest and decorate, but I knew a lot of you were interested and wanted to get the scoop ASAP so here you are!
(Full disclosure: you will get to the point where you want to throat punch the piano, but once its done…its a a great sense of accomplishment so push through the pain)!
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Annie Sloane chalk paint (I have not tried other brands because she makes a high quality product I trust, and with a piece as big and grand as a piano I didn’t want to half-ass it) I used color “OLD WHITE” for a farmhouse feel. Also when purchasing just knows that a quart goes a very long way. It only took me one quart to do the entire piano.
- Annie Sloane bristle paint brush…I was lucky enough to borrow one from a friend, but I think its worth the investment if you think you are going to do multiple projects!
- Annie Sloan large bristle wax brush
- Sand paper (I also used an orbital sander and sanding sponge and rotated between the three depending on how gloopy the area was) Sanding 101: The higher the grit the more gentle it is…if you are going for just smoothing out a surface I would recommend 220 grit. If you are really trying to take paint off and sand down to the surface you can really go as low as like 60-80 grit.
- Annie Sloane Clear Wax – with me choosing a white color for the piano I did not feel the need to do dark wax. She will tell you on her website, even if you want to do dark wax to add more distressing, you still have to apply clear wax first or else it will look dirty. If you do clear wax first and then apply dark wax you can wipe off the dark wax you don’t like. This did not apply to my project, but just sharing tips from all my research in case you are inclined to do so!
- Lint free rag or old t-shirt…I used one of Reids white t-shirts from his drawer, sorry Reid if you’re reading this! You want to make sure its super clean and doesnt have any residue on it or it will stick to the wax and be hard to get off.
- Painting paper & tape to tape off any spots you don’t want to paint in the piano such as the keys and metal feet in my case! I also used a drop cloth on the ground so prevents from little splatters.
Okay lets get started! The beauty of chalk paint is…you don’t have to spend hours on hours sanding!!! That is one of the main reasons I chose to go this route. Sanding down a piano is near impossible…and with a piece that big you’d want to move it outside to sand and there was no way I was moving that beast. Chalk paint I think gives a little bit of a rustic farmhouse vibe. I have been drawn to more simple “clean lined” modern pieces, but we do live on a farm so I figured this was my chance to incorporate a little farmhouse flare!
I know everyone always says it and its annoying, but it really is “all in the prep work.” I had to spend some time taping everything well so it didn’t look like crap in the end. Once I was prepped, we started with the first coat. The first coat is NOT going to look good, its essentially the primer coat so you just kind of slab it on and hope for the best. The second and third coat is where you want to pay more attention to detail. I was lucky enough to have my friend who used to do this for her profession get me started. One of her tips with the second and third coat is to get a little bit of water on the brush to smooth out the paint again for a cleaner looking end product. There’s really no specific way to paint, you’ll find your rhythm and what works for you. The only problem I ran into here is that because it required so many coats, there was a good amount of overlap which caused for some “gloopiness” as I like to call it. This is easily sanded off at the end so don’t fret if you run into this problem. I ended up doing about 3 full coats, and 4-5 coats on certain smaller areas where it didn’t stick as well. Once again…be patient!
Next step…sanding and repainting areas you don’t love. Where I saw sediment or paint droplets or overlap, I took my sanding tools and got rid of them. The sanding sponge is great for just “smoothing out” a surface that maybe looks a little more rough. I think the best tool for getting rid of the tricky spots is just a simple piece of sand paper, you can use a rougher grit since you are controlling it with the pressure of your own hand. If you were to use an orbital sander you have to be more careful because that can easily take off way more than you hoped. Don’t worry I made that mistake so now I can warn you!
After sanding down problems spots, you can choose to leave it distressed…or paint over those spots again depending on the look you are going for. I chose to leave most of the spots distressed to give it a worn in look.
Last but not least…time for wax! Now this step is very important because without wax your paint will start to chip, especially if you are planning on placing stuff on top of the piano for decor. I watched some videos on YouTube and it overall was pretty simple. Here’s what I did as recommended by Annie Sloane, I took the thick bristle wax brush (I borrowed this from a friend, but a good investment if you are projecting a lot) and I brushed on two coats of wax back to back, then I took my clean lint free t-shirt and pretty firmly rubbed off a lot of the wax. You don’t want it to feel super sticky and thick, its just supposed to be a protective layer. Watching videos and going into it with confidence will help!
Now I cannot say this was all rainbows and butterflies. A lot of blogs will tell you its super easy, takes 10 minutes and is only $5…that is crap unless you have magical superpowers ;). I am having to go back and redo the area around the keys…it was really hard to tape off the keys but still get in the nooks and crannies as you can imagine. If I make it out alive I will be sure to update you all! But for now…I hope this helped just a bit if you were interested in refinishing your piano, or really any type of furniture! I know I seem like a bit of a negative nancy but I just like to give you the truth instead of the “fluff” version. The end product is great and very much worth it!
Here is Annie Sloane’s website so you can browse her wide variety of colors and demos. I will be heading to warm and sunny Arizona to get some much needed Vitamin D. I hope to share more projects when I am back. If there’s any specific projects you would like me to write about please feel free to leave a message. And I always try and do lots of posts on my Instagram for you all. Until next time…thanks for reading along!!!