Your favorite shoe cabinet in a classy black texture: how-to

Painter’s tape
Foam brushes
Stencil brush (I used a cheap one from Michael’s)
Stencil
Acrylic paint (I used basic artist’s acrylic paint from Michael’s, called Artist’s Loft). Any color (it’s getting painted over!)
Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (non-toxic, low VOC! Even food safe!)
Annie Sloan clear wax and black wax (or whichever colored wax you like)
2 old dress socks, free of lint

White to black shoe cabinet instructions:

First, simply clean all surface area of the HEMNES shoe cabinet. (I used a multi-purpose cleaner!) Then, remove the drawers and the knobs.

Use painter’s tape to set a border around the fronts. You can set it however thick you need it to be.

The next thing is to plan out your stencil dimensions.

Usually a stencil has to be repeated over and over. On that account, you may want to measure your area and plan your border appropriately so that your stencil fits in there nicely.

Make sure you account for any “trim” on the border of the stencil, if necessary.

Start stencilling

Use the acrylic paint on the stencil, and make sure you give a bit of thickness to the paint. Nevertheless, don’t put too much paint on, or it will go messy when you take the stencil off.

You can maybe do a test of it on some cardboard to get the right texture.

black shoe cabinet 1 — Cat approves the color and texture

Wash your stencil, and repeat. (Make sure your acrylic paint is fully dry first, before doing next one. It will take roughly 2 or 3 hours if your paint is thick).

Continue painting over your stencil until your area inside your taped border is covered.

If you screw up your stencil, just wipe the acrylic paint off with paper towel. The surface doesn’t even have to be perfectly clean again to reapply.

You can also see in one of the photos that I actually have 2 shades of “white” paint. That’s just to show that it doesn’t really matter what color you go with for the acrylic.

Leaving the tape on, now you can apply the chalk paint once the acrylic is completely dry.

Paint over with chalk paint

I used the foam brush to dab the paint on, which helps bring out the texture of your stencil pattern. If you get a bit of “foam brush” texture, that’s ok too!

Once completely dry (chalk paint takes about 30 mins to dry, give or take, depending on humidity), remove the painter tape.

Reapply new painter tape over the edges of the stencil area so that you can paint the border. I used a foam brush again on the boarder, and you can make it smooth or have a bit of brush strokes, up to you.

Do some research if you want completely smooth, because once you apply the dark wax, any brush strokes will be enhanced.

Do touch-ups as necessary around the edges of your stencil area, after removing the painter’s tape. Use a dabbing motion, not brush strokes.

Finish with wax

Next, apply clear wax, then apply the black wax (or whichever shade of wax you chose).

I used one dress sock (inside out) for one wax, and the other for the second wax. Keep them separate so that you don’t get colored wax in your clear wax.