Retrospective look at my first Chalk Painted piece

       I've been painting with Annie Sloan chalk paint for perhaps 5 months now, and I'm still learning how to work with the paint and wax and such. My first project was a huge drop-leaf table that I took from a dumpster in college. I have no idea who would get rid of it, because it's solid and well built! Well, it was pretty filthy and needed to be either painted or refinished but it's a great piece. It happily sat on our balcony for a year and a half, where we played beer pong eeeh I mean studied studiously and took notes! Ahem. For its next round of uses, I chose Duck Egg and had something rather advanced in mind (a version of this) and it did not go as planned. At all. I haphazardly slapped on some Old White first in random spots, not anticipating how fast it would dry and thus not blend as I had planned. After the initial layer of Duck Egg, I distressed it and then ended up completely repainting it because I hated it so much. I got so frustrated it took me a whole month to buck up and finish, and looking at it now I still feel like I need to repaint the big distressed spots and calm it all down a bit. The color is absolutely lovely, but the photos are not quite faithful to this so you'll have to trust me. I used some old dark minwax that we found in the garage (prob another mistake of mine) that was pretty dried up and frankly chunky compared to fresh dark wax. Of course we made poo jokes the entire time. Anyway, I will probably lavish some more loving on this table before I consider it properly finished, but here it is in the current state!

A work in progress

The big, bald patches are too pronounced for my taste, but I really like the effect of the white underneath with the dark wax

As a whole, I am very pleased with the color and the general appearance, I just want the patches to be painted in and then I think I'll be satisfied! It's just a matter of getting this baby hauled back downstairs. It truly does weigh a ton! Last time I moved we had to take it apart first because it weighs so much. Quality dumpster diving right there! :D