Chalk Paint Mantel

This month marked our four year anniversary in our home. As crazy as it sounds, this is the longest that I have ever lived in one house in my entire life. Although my husband is in the military, we plan on staying here for years to come and it has been such a joy to decorate and create the home of my dreams, and not just the home that I think will sell the easiest.

And with that thought in mind, I went about redoing my fireplace mantel.

There was nothing wrong with it at all, and it fit the look of the house well, it just didn’t speak to me. I am not a white wall kind of gal and the stark white of the mantel on the black slate surround just looked a little too builder grade for my taste. I knew that if I walked into the house next door or the one down the street that they would have the exact same fireplace and I just wasn’t satisfied with that. Here it is before I started to work on it:

So I did what any DIYing girl would do…made a trip to the home improvement store. I had no plan in mind other than to rid the mantel of white. I started out by imagining a whole new facade on the front to build it out and make it beefier. Then I moved on to just creating a box to sit on top of the mantel to create a wood top. Then I moved on to tiling the slate.

None of those things really did it for me though.

I ended up buying a quart of paint and deciding to just start. I wasn’t too terribly concerned at this point because I knew that if I hated it I could always paint it white again. Gray was the color of choice, but it just did not stand out enough against my already painted walls. I was disappointed and wondering what to do next when the light bulb in my mind went off.

The gray, you see, would be a great color to bring out from underneath black with some distressing.

Enter chalk paint, one of my favorite creations!

I was extremely nervous to go black on black, but I wanted something out of the box and this was sink or swim time. I timidly added one coat, still unsure of myself. Then the second coat was applied and it was starting to grow on me. But it still looked so dark and I was second guessing everything knowing that painting it back to white now would be a much larger chore.

Using a 220 sanding pad, I started to lightly distress the mantel in the areas where I thought a bit more color would be helpful. I was starting to like it a bit more.

More sanding, more smiles from me.

When I felt like I had distressed to my taste, I added a wax finish and let it dry. I’ll be honest and tell you that even at this point I was still not 100% sold on it.

I wasn’t completely in love with the look until I added my decor back in. It needed a punch of color from my knick knacks to stand out. And now it all pops and I am head over heels with it!

If you are contemplating changing up a builder boring mantel, I highly encourage you to go outside your comfort zone a bit and see what happens. Like I kept telling myself, if you hate it you can always repaint it.

But you just might love it!