Refinish an old globe using chalk paint to create a beautiful and changeable piece of home decor.
In the post A Design Makeover, one of the best decor pieces in the room is a globe refinished with chalk paint.
A sphere is a great element to add to any decor because most furniture and home decor is rectangular with square angles. The curves of a sphere break up those straight lines and angle and add something interesting to catch your eye. A globe makes a perfect home decor sphere because of its large size and because it can stand on its own. It can be places anywhere.
The only downside to using a globe to decorate is the ugly and outdated map. But it’s easy to refinish an old globe with chalk paint to make it any color in your palette. Plus chalk paint turns the globe into a round chalkboard that can be redrawn and updated whenever you feel like it.
How to Refinish an Old Globe
After figuring out how to make chalk paint to refinish my piano, and discovering how easy and inexpensive it was to use, I started to paint more things – like this globe I found at our local thrift store, Deseret Industries.
I started by taking the equator sticker off. It had already started peeling, and I knew it would get in the way.
Next, I mixed up my Calcium Carbonate Powder Chalk Paint Additive with Sherwin Williams Halcyon Green, following the instructions on the package. Buying calcium carbonate is much less expensive that those ready-made chalk paints. The package has a good recipe on it, making the paint chalky enough to get texture without being gritty and thick. Plus the recipe even says to have fun!
I added a couple of coats to make sure you couldn’t see the globes old paint job.
After it was all dry, I seasoned the globe by drawing chalk all over the whole thing and erasing it, this makes it so your drawings erase better later.
Next I searched Pinterest for the perfect saying and wrote, “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”
It found a perfect home on top of my newly chalk painted piano.