How to Remove Chalk Paint

Have you ever found a piece of furniture that you like but someone smothered it in chalk paint? Good news, you can still love that piece! You just need a little bit of time, energy, and water…oh and this post. Here’s how to remove chalk paint.

Why remove chalk paint? Aside from it’s ugly and overdone, its water soluble. If you ever need to clean that bit of furniture (like me as a mom with toddlers who find pens does), you’ll take the paint right off. I’m not saying don’t paint furniture. I have painted pieces, painted antiques even. There’s a time and a place for it. Although, saying that, I usually leave the top free of paint and apply a stain and clear varnish. But that’s just me.

I picked this bed frame up for $40 on Facebook Marketplace. We added about $60 worth of wood in slats and support plywood for her foam mattress, and paid about $20 for the clear polyurathane which we’ll use on other projects as well. We had the stain and sanding supplies. So for $120 we got my daughter a beautiful antique bed frame that we customized for her! Stick around to see part two and learn how I painted the piece.

What You’ll Need to Remove Chalk Paint

Water, preferably warm is the biggest thing you’ll need. Next, find a gentle cleaner. I switched back and forth between dish soap and some kind of spray cleaner. Rags or paper towels that you don’t mind losing. A chisel or something to scrape the paint off. I also used an old dish brush. Sand paper is a bonus and can help get the paint off of of some of the hard to scrub areas.

Lastly you’ll need some room to work. I also appreciated having saw horses to place pieces on.

How to Remove the Chalk Paint

The first step is to put on some old clothes, and throw your hair back because it’s going to be a bit messy. Next, get your warm water and soap and wet down your piece. You need it to be wet enough that it can sit for a few minutes and get the paint wet before it dries out. You’re not going to hurt the piece. I literally took a garden hose to mine at one point. You’ll let it dry later.

Next, take your scraping tool and applying even pressure, scrape off as much paint as you can. This is where working on saw horses and potentially outside is handy. keep wetting down the paint and scraping. When you can’t scrape, try applying a bit more water, soap, or cleaner and rubbing it off. You’ll be surprised at how easy this paint will come off. There will be residue though so don’t wear yourself out trying to get it 100% clean inch by inch. Get as much as you can off first and then go back and clean the residue off.

It was a beautiful sunny day, so after hosing the parts of my bed frame down, I put them in the grass to dry. Be sure to let the piece evenly dry. If you have a bed frame or something lying flat, turn it over and make sure it gets totally dried out.

What Lies Beneath

Taking chalk paint off is always a gamble. There’s a decent chance that the original finish of the wood has been altered or destroyed and that’s what led someone to take the easy way out. That’s what chalk paint is, the every man’s easy way out. If this is the case, you now have the opportunity to refinish your piece of furniture. You might need a bit paint stripper to take off a clear coat or remnants of paint.

Sanding is almost always and option as well. That’s what I did in this case. The piece was stained, but it was uneven and faded. Also, it was a bit on the orange side? I got an orbital sander out and hit all of the big areas as much as I could. Next I used a dremil tool to get the smaller and harder to reach areas. Lastly a sanding block and sand paper got into all of the corners. Then I stained it. Here is where I made a mistake though. I was too lazy to go out and get more wood conditioner and some of the sections really needed it. These parts took way more stain the others and it is noticeable.