Hello everyone and welcome to my blog

Hi, Before anything I want to introduce myself, my name is Daniel, I live in Toronto and I am DIYer at heart. Whatever I can do on my own I will try it first before I would ever try to pay for something or for someone to do it for me. With that said, this blog will focus on one of my greatest passions: Refinish furniture! I just cannot believe that someone will rather through way beautiful pieces of furniture just because they look old, have few scratches or doesn’t fit their décor anymore! I have to admit I was one of them… not long ago, I would much rather buy a new table than being bother with doing something to it… that was until I discover something that open my eyes to a world of possibilities: Chalk Paint! On this my first post, I want to tell you all how I came across to this wonderful product and how it went on my very first “salvaged” piece. About three years ago, I was almost on my way to the office, when coming out of my building, a saw what seemed to be a large dresser that someone had left outside to picked up as garbage… me being nosey as I am, I had to go and inspect… the dresser was old, maybe from 40s or 50s.. looked to be made out of walnut wood (very red) and it looked to be in great condition besides a few scratches in the top, and little piece broken from the bottom. It had wonderful carvings and it just looked like it deserved a second chance. I walked away… yes I did, I was running late and until that time, I had never picked anything out that someone had left as garbage before, so just kept on walking… however every step I took, my brain continue to tell me that I should turn around and picked that dresser up, so I did.. I went back and got it to my apartment. The dresser stood on my spare bedroom for weeks, back then I had never refinished furniture and I had no idea on how to start or what to do, so I did some research in youtube as well as the internet and decided that stripping the dresser was my best bet. A few weekends after, I left to the Home Depot and bought what seemed like enough chemicals to make an atomic bomb… stripping solution, thinner, sand paper, stripping knife, etc, etc, etc and off I went. If any of you have done this, you know that it is a messy business… not only the fumes from the products are enough to kill a small cat, but the mess of the stuff that comes out of the furniture, plus the dust from the sanding, it would make your place look like a bomb literally went off, and should never be attempted to be done in a small condominium in the middle of winter when you cannot even open a window! Anyway, the dresser was stripped of all the staining and varnish that it had had for the last few years, I also got rid of all that patina (fancy name for dirt that accumulates in furniture during time) and there it was staring right at me wondering what I was gonna put it through now… after a lot of thinking I decided that a burgundy stain would be best, it would make it look nice and brand new, and so I did… put a coat of stain and it was nice… not exceptional but nice. I wasn’t sure if I was going to give it another coat of staining or what… so I never varnished. And the dresser stood like that untouched for a year… I just looked at it and I knew something had to be done to it… So finally I decided I was going to paint it… not sure how but I have seen on tv nice pieces of furniture transformed by paint… I knew I couldn’t use the same stuff I use for the walls, so I started investigating…. So I looked into today’s everyone’s university: YouTube… typed painting furniture, click search and the very first thing that came back was Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. At that time I had no idea what chalk paint was, so watched a few videos and I was stunned on how easy they made an old chair into something you would pay thousands of dollars at Pottery Barn or Restoration Hardware… so I thought to myself, I need to get me some that! To my surprise and disappointment, there wasn’t any store that carried the AS brand in the entire city of Toronto (Canada’s largest) so unless I was going to drive two hours to the nearest stockist store (as they call it) I was completely out of look. I didn’t give up, I knew there had to be some way to get chalk paint without driving two hours or ordering online and waiting for 5 days to receive it… so I came across Rustoleum chalk paint, which was available in any hardware store. Here is the downside of that though, there is only 5 colors available and only one size which is like a quarter of a gallon… which seems like not much, but trust me, that is enough to paint your entire kitchen! So I went with the Charcoal Grey and the Aged Grey, (grey is my favorite color!) and came home… that cost me about 70 dollars, so not cheap… not cheap at all. I was very surprised to see how thick the paint was when I opened the can… so off I went to you tube and learned that chalk paint is water based, so you can actually add water to make it to the consistency you actually want! I also learned that you can make it so diluted that you can use it as a wash (more on that later) not to “paint” the furniture but actually “stain” the wood. That blow my mind.. so I started the dresser transformation by doing the “wash” that way I could see how the color would work… and I loved it… however I knew I had to actually paint the dresser not just stain it. Another great thing about Chalk Paint is that I didn’t had to strip that dresser again… nor sand it… the paint covered everything perfectly, nothing from the old color was showing (except where I want it to show) so I only had to give it one coat, and it dried literally in minutes which means I finish the project in just a few hours! So the final verdict on Chalk Paint…. It is awesome! The verdict on Rustoleum paint… not cheap, but when you consider how far that can of paint is going to last, then it is worth the money, but only if you planning to do a lot of furniture on the same color… also, it is very convenient because you can get it anywhere, but again, if you are only planning to paint a small side table or a chair, this will leave you with a lot of leftovers! However it will keep for long time as long as the can is closed very tight (air will make the paint dry and make it really thick). Finally, the colors are very limited (at least what you can get in the stores here in Canada) you can only pick from white, charcoal, grey, pink and baby blue. So not a huge selection. So if you have a piece of furniture that you don’t like anymore, or doesn’t fit in your décor, or it is damaged… don’t through it away! Think of the planet and do not send more stuff to the landfill! Give it a facelift with chalk paint! Next post I will tell you on my experience with Annie Sloan paint 