Painting Upholstery Fabric With Chalk Paint

by Patricia

$13.50

Easy

My aunt's neighbor was going to throw this chair away, but she snatched it up for me instead. Then my husband snatched it up for his man cave. He said it was the perfect height for his game table. Obviously he cares more about function than design! The chair was yucky and if it was going to stay then something had to be done. I’ve been intrigued by other posts about painting upholstered furniture, so I decided to give it a try.

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The fabric has a tight weave to it and the tea cup pattern is slightly raised with other areas that have worn away. So I knew from the start that the tea cup pattern and imperfections wouldn't disappear altogether, but I figured they would fade into the background.

Worn fabric.

I used Old Ochre (Annie Sloan Chalk Paint) as the color for the upholstered area. The key to using chalk paint over fabric is to make sure the paint isn't too thick. So before applying paint I dampened the fabric thoroughly with a wet wash cloth. Next, I thinned out the paint with water.

1st coat of paint.

I let the 1st coat of paint dry overnight. The next day I applied a second coat of paint.

Applying the 2nd coat of paint.

The paint at this point is un-waxed, and if you are familiar with Chalk Paint it has a chalky feel to it, but the fabric is still supple and doesn't crack. I pressed down on the fabric and took a photo to try and demonstrate this for you.

2nd coat dry. Fabric remains flexible.

Once all the paint was thoroughly dry I applied a coat of soft clear wax.

Soft clear wax applied.

Are you ready to try painting upholstery? Stop on by my blog for the full tutorial.

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5 of 8 comments

Patricia on Aug 17, 2015
Thank you @Hannah V :-)

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Sheri N on Oct 02, 2015
Thanks for the great idea and tutorial! My husband and I are purchasing an older RV with side valances on the windows that hide the sides of the window shades. I really didn't want to re-upholster these since that was so time consuming and costly. So I'm going to try my hand at painting them. The only difficult part is picking out the color!

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- Patricia on Oct 02, 2015
  @Sheri N That sounds like an awesome project @Sheri N and I'll admit I have RV envy. Fixing up an older RV is on my bucket list :-) Before you get started on your valances, you might want to try and find a small sample in a similar type fabric and try painting it. This way you'll know if there are any problems beforehand before making a big commitment.
  
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- Sheri N on Oct 02, 2015
  @Patricia Thanks Patricia! That was in the plan! We've got a great fabric store in reno that sells upholstery fabric, it's my go to place for on the cheap!
  
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- Valarie Paez on May 02, 2019
  
  How did painting the valances in your RV turn out? I'm planning to do the same thing, so will be interested to hear how your project turned out.
  
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