Like many people with preschool-aged children, we are the proud owners of a very useful table and chairs for little people – the ubiquitous Lätt, from everyone’s favourite Swedish flat-packed furniture emporium.  After nearly three years of (ab)use from Chief Stick Collector and, latterly, Bird Girl, the lovely Lätt has started to look a little tired and unhappy.

What it needed was an injection of joy, a splash of colour. Step forward my favourite new toy – Chalk Paint by Annie Sloan!

Perfect for the slap-dash and the impatient amongst us – those who, when they decide they want to change something, want to do it NOW, and hang the preparation, priming and planning.  This paint was made for people like me, who just want to slap it on and get on with it.  For this little project I chose two colours ‘Provence’ – a bright turquoise – for the chairs; and ‘Duck Egg’ – a more muted blue-green – for the table.

In truth, the choice of colours was an uncharacteristic act of preparation for a larger project on my wish-list of decorating tasks – painting the playroom mantelpiece and mirror. But that’s slightly more of a big deal than painting a little table and chairs, and I’ll mind a bit more if I mess that one up, so I needed to try out some colours in advance.  (The mantelpiece project will almost certainly feature in a future post!)

Painting with Chalk Paint really is very simple, I just used a tester pot of each colour, it was more than enough and I have some left over for other projects. (On hearing about these, Mr LetsTryThisAtHome commented that he’s now scared to sit down for too long in one place, in case he finds himself getting painted too.)

After giving the paint a good stir, I just slapped it on with a paintbrush.  I only did one coat, mainly because I quite liked the way the wood showed through slightly in places, and because it didn’t really need two. It dried in less than an hour, and then I rubbed a coat of wax on and, hey presto, it was done!  Here’s how it turned out:

I love that the colour matches the blind we have on the window to the right of the picture below (which you can’t see here).  But it also picks up the turquoise shade you can just make out in the big picture on the wall.

Those pictures on the wall are actually part of another on-going mini-project I have, to decorate the wall of the playroom with vintage board games.  I have four so far and am on the hunt for more (hooray for eBay!).  I’ll probably write more about that project when it is a little more advanced.

Hmmm… the inside cubes of that Expedit shelving unit look like they could maybe do with brightening up a little…