Semi-germane Germaines: Chalk Painted Piano

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Chalk Painted Piano

For years, I looked for a reasonably priced piano as my boys just had a keyboard in the hallway to practice their piano. I finally found one for $200.00 which seemed like a lot for such an old out of tune piano but it was the best I could find. On another occasion I had bought a piano from the thrift store and as they were delivering it they hit bump in the driveway and the whole piano fell to pieces. Back it went to the thrift store, sadly. This piano is actually a player piano but the player piano part doesn't work. After the piano tuner man came the boys were ready to practice, practice, practice. I had been thinking about painting this piano for a while. It is so dark and big I felt like it sucked all the light out the room. The finish wasn't in the best of shape either. Painting it seemed like a good option. I didn't want to drag this crazy, heavy piano outside so I needed to find a way to do it insided.

Chalk paint was the perfect choice since you don't need to sand or prime with it. I found lots of choices for making your own chalk paint but the cheapest seemed to be plaster of paris mixed with water then mixed with flat paint. I painted my diy chalk paint with a paint brush having taped off things I didn't want painted like the keys and pedals. The chalk paint covered really well and it does have a slightly bumpy texture when you paint it on but you can sand that off if you wish.

Before

Before with Zany at piano

I chose a turquoise/aqua color

Side view

After I painted two coats of chalk paint, I thought I should seal it to keep it durable. Eddy painstakingly polyurethaned it. I couldn't find any matte polyurethane so I had to get satin. When it dried the sun hit it and it was weirdly shiny. I liked the creamy matte look and sealing it ruined that. I didn't like it so I had to repaint it with the chalk paint again. Then the question was to distress or not to distress. I decided to distress it which Quinton thought was horrible. To take a newly, nicely painted piano and purposely make it look ratty seemed silly to him. I ignored him and used an electric sander to sand it all down which smoothed out the paint. The chalk paint was easy to work with and I would use it again.