Annie Sloan - Annie Sloan Paints Everything: Step-by-Step Projects for Your Entire Home, from Walls, Floors, and Furniture, to Curtains, Blinds, Pillows, and Shades

annie sloan Paints

EVERYTHING

annie sloan

Paints

EVERYTHING

Step-by-step projects for your
entire home, from walls, floors,
and furniture to curtains,
blinds, pillows, and shades

I would like to dedicate this book to all of my stockists; I couldnt do this without you. Thanks for all your support and love.

Published in 2016 by CICO Books

An imprint of Ryland Peters & Small Ltd

www.rylandpeters.com

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Text Annie Sloan 2016

Design and photography CICO Books 2016

The authors moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

The Chalk Paint trademark is owned by Annie Sloan Interiors Ltd. and is registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78249-356-3

eISBN: 978-1-78249-618-2

Editor Caroline West

Design concept Geoff Borin

Designer Sarah Rock

Photographer Christopher Drake

Senr editor Carmel Edmonds

Art director Sally Powell

Productn manager Gordana Simakovic

Publishing manager Penny Craig

Publisher Cindy Richards

CONTENTS

I dont expect many books have been named after the words printed on a paint-mixing stick, but thats what happened in this case! I was at the planning stage of the book and explaining to my publisher that one of the things I wanted the book to be about was how you can, in fact, paint everything! Across the table were the mixing sticks we had just launched. One thing led to another and the book was named!

Because it is true that, as the books title suggests, Annie Sloan paints everything! Throughout the preparation of the book, Paint Everything has been the rallying cry. But I didnt want it to be about all the weird and wonderful things people paintskateboards, tubas, and even caravans!nor just about all the multitude of surfaces that can be painted, such as fabrics, concrete, plastics, melamine, marble, and metal, as well as all the usual surfaces like wood. This is an important point, of course, and one that I certainly took into account: youll see how I have painted as many different types of wood, both old and new, as I could (namely, oak, mahogany veneer, parquet flooring, scaffolding boards, and pine), along with metals, leather, glass, and fabrics as diverse as lace, burlap (hessian), dust sheets, canvas, and different linens, including my own Annie Sloan Coloured Linens. I even painted rope!

In this book, I wanted to excite you and encourage you to paint everything. I wanted to show how my own range of paint, Chalk Paint, which I developed in 1990, has retained its classic identity and continued to evolve and develop with new techniques and treatments. It is part of a greater story about interior decorating, involving fabrics, walls, and floor treatments, which can be used to transform your home in a natural and stylish way.

I have gilded and tarnished metal leaf; I have lino-printed on furniture; I have painted, tied, dyed, and dipped fabrics. I have printed, stenciled, and reverse-stenciled on fabrics, walls, and furniture. I have painted in a painterly, freehand way and in a controlled way. Ive used colored waxes and crackled paintwork. Ive used transferred images and decorated chairs, tables, chests of drawers, lamp bases, and lampshades. And there were still plenty of ideas that didnt make it into the book!

I have been inspired by art and artists, fashion and design, and Ive thought inside the box and outside the box, been conventional and unconventional. I have done lots of easy projects and a few projects that will need a little more skill. I decided at an early stage that if a project didnt push my buttons, then it wasnt going in the book. This is also a huge shout-out for the power of color and how colors can be combined. If any thing gets my juices going, then its how color and texture work together.

I think this is my most personal book yet and it comes very directly from me, with my color palette and style. Please enjoy it, be inspired, and, above all, paint everything!

Using the right tools and materials is, of course, absolutely essential if you are to achieve the best results! Everything Ive painted in the book uses my Annie Sloan paints and materials.

PAINT

There are many paints on the market, but I have designed the projects in this book with my purpose-made Chalk Paint in mind (see Useful Addresses on for information on unsuitable surfaces). It has a very matte texture and absorbs wax easily, and has been specially created to be used in a huge variety of waysfor example, as a wash, with or without texture, applied thickly, on fabric, or as a dyewhich is why it lends itself so well to painting everything.

One of the great bonuses of using this particular paint is that there is no need to prepare furniture first by priming or rubbing down, which means you can start painting easily and quickly while you have the urge. The paint, despite being water-based, even mixes easily with the solvent-based wax too, so you can color the final finish to get the exact color you want. As a general guide, you will need 1-quart (1-liter) cans of paint for large projects and small project pots for painting and decorating smaller areas. For the most part, you only need to apply one coat of Chalk Paint, but where two coats are necessary, apply the first one with a big brush.

COLOR

Dont be shy to use colors. Color scares most people and suggesting that they use colors can conjure up a circus-like array of hues, so they err on the side of caution and end up with a lot of neutrals, which can be disappointing. Perhaps it would be better to focus on some neutrals and then add some color. For instance, when thinking of what color to paint a piece of furniture for a particular room, you could start with a palette of neutrals with, say, one or two stronger colors for interest and focus. In other words, either paint a piece of furniture in a defined color with neutral walls or vice versa. Remember that colored waxes can change the color too, so take this into consideration when you are applying your chosen paint.