Wednesday, August 12, 2020

How to get the Chippy Paint Look


I just love wood decor that has chippy paint. I have plenty of pieces throughout my house that I bought or made myself. Here's a few chippy pieces I have in my home that I love!


One of my favorites is a chippy barn door that I got at a flea market that I use for a photo backdrop for a lot of my Etsy products along with a vintage scale I got from Decor Steals. You can see some of my DIY mini moss balls peeking out of the chippy wood tool box.


I also have several windows that have chippy paint. Here's one that I have one of my DIY magnolia wreaths hanging on.


I also have a pair of chippy iron doors that I couldn't resist buying from an antique mall.


While I'm at it, I just have to share my new workstation that Cory made for me out of a desk that was in his Aunt's kitchen. It was a true labor of love and the blogger in me really wishes he would've taken before and during pictures because the transformation is absolutely astounding.


Since I've been stuck at home with my compromised immune system during the Covid-19 pandemic, I have some spare time, so I've decided to try to get as many projects done as I can when I feel well enough. Unfortunately I've really been slacking on finishing up the blog posts for these projects (I have about 20 posts started!!) but I'll get to them all, I promise! One of the many projects is a gallery wall on my stairway. This post on how to get the chippy paint look is just the start of multiple posts for my stairway gallery wall.

Alright, that's enough about my DIY ADD and onto the instructions.

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Chippy Paint Supplies

-Wood decor you want to look chippy (I used an old window)
-Stain (Here's one of my fave colors)
-Paint (Here's a great white chalk paint!)
-Wax or candle
-Metal putty knife
-Sandpaper (optional, if you want a smoother, more worn look)

There are many ways to create the chippy paint look. In the past I've used various methods to get this look including Elmer's Glue, Vasoline, a blowdryer, and the list goes on. For this window I wanted to try something new to see if it turned out better and/or was easier. Honestly I prefer this method over any other I've tried!

To get started, I needed a dark base coat to make the chipped paint stand out. Since the wood was already stained I skipped this step.


After your stain is dry, gather your supplies for the next step: paint, paint brush and wax (I used an old candle).


After you've got your supplies take the candle (or wax) and rub it anywhere you don't want the paint to completely stick.


After the wax is distributed on the wood simply paint all over the wood. You don't have to make it perfect and you can leave bare spots with no paint as this will look more natural, like the paint was worn off over time.


Here's my window after painting. It looks streaky and I didn't cover the whole thing which will aid in the look of old, chippy paint I'm going for.


After the paint is dry use a metal putty knife and scrape the surface to pull the paint up from where wax was applied.


When I was done, I felt like there was too much paint scraped off so I painted a little more in some spots and scraped again. I sanded just a tad and realized I liked how it looked without sanding so I left it alone. This process is very forgiving and you can play around with it until you get it exactly the way you want. You can also use multiple colors of paint to give your piece more character. I left mine with white only since that was the look I was going for.

Here's a couple pics of the whole finished window. It turned out exactly how I wanted it to, like the chippiness occurred naturally, over time



Here's some close up shots so you can see all the delightful chippiness.





Stay tuned for my next post which is the finished product for my chippy window and the next step in my stairway gallery wall. Until the next time!


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