I think you all know that I do a lot of painting.  To save my back, I usually use a small child size chair to sit on when I paint towards the bottom of pieces of furniture (unless I put them up on saw horses).  It really works great, but the other day nnK brought something home for me that I think will work even better.  And old doctor’s stool.

The seat goes up and down and I can just scoot around the piece of furniture on it.  Fab, right?

Now, I could have just used it as is.  The color isn’t terrible and I’m only using it in the garage (and probably in the house come winter).  But looking at that seat I had an idea.  We’ve all seen people paint leather or vinyl chairs with chalk paint, right?  Well, although it always looks great when it’s freshly done, I can’t help but wonder if it really holds up over time.  This stool gives me the perfect opportunity to test it out.

I got out my chalk paint and mixed up my own color using some of Urban Rooster’s Jaded Rooster and a lot of Annie Sloan’s Old White.  I wiped the seat down with some TSP substitute and that was the only prep I did.  Then, I painted on three coats of paint.  Once dry, I added a stenciled ‘2’ just for fun.  Once that dried, I sanded the seat lightly with 220 grit paper and used Fusion’s bees wax to seal it.

And voila!

Dang!  Isn’t it cute?

It turned out so fab that I almost hate to use it as a perch for painting now.

Freshly painted it looks fantastic.  The paint seems to be adhering (I’m pretty sure this is vinyl by the way).  Here is a nice close up photo where you can see the texture of the material.

And you can see where I distressed around the edges as I sanded it.

So now the test begins.  I’ll use this stool for a few months and then report back.  We’ll just have to wait and see whether or not painting vinyl with chalk paint will stand the test of time.