DIY'ers Rejoice!!

No Sanding!  No Priming!  No Kidding!

Anyone who has followed this blog a bit knows I find everything to be a pain in the ass.  That's why when I saw those glorious words above I was more than a little interested.  When I find things that are easy to use, I feel an obligation to bring them forward as well.  With that in mind, it brings me great pleasure to talk about the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint system.  It is definitely not a pain in the ass.

Tami Fandrei is one of the Northern California stockists (that's what they call them) and we had heard great things about the paint from friends and family.   Tami and I had long been talking about exchanging photographic services for her painting expertise, so we finally decided to get together and make it happen.  She got some photos for her website and I got a product that's not a pain in the ass.

Nikki has been all over me to start re-finishing our cabinets and I could only slough off my husband duties on Robert, our designer friend, so many times before I could no longer go to that well.  With that in mind, I set about investigating this paint.

We visited Tami and she showed us some samples and gave us an idea of what it would take to do our cabinets.   We decided we would do a smaller set of cabinets in the hallway to make sure we were happy with the product before moving on to the much larger project in the kitchen.  Our house was built in the 1990's and all of the cabinets in the house are honey oak.  Honey Oak works well for people over about 60, but it doesn't help with our desire to create a wine country cozy feel, so we bought a can of country gray, some dark wax, and went to work.

To my amazement, the product was as good as advertised.  I barely swore, didn't hit Nikki, and I didn't guzzle bourbon to get through the pain.  We simply painted, applied the wax, and voila, a completely new set of cabinets for around $160.

There are a million different things you can do with the paint, whether it's a simple picture frame, to a complete re-finish of your kitchen cabinets.  Tami is a decorating and re-finishing whiz and her mind works a million miles a minute. She can help you with any questions or ideas you may have about the product and how to use it.  You can find her at any one of the following spots:

Facebook
Blog
Website

If you're local and have a project in mind, give here a call.  If you're not local, check out the Annie Sloan website for the local stockist.

The good news is that using this paint was easy, so easy in fact that now I'll have to do the kitchen.

I think that might be a pain in the ass.....