Kitchen Remodel : Shelves and Chalk Paint? CHALK PAINT!

I found the most delicious stain color a few years ago .

It was a mistint on the clearance table at Lowe's.

A few bucks for a no-name color in quart size and my entire house color scheme changed.

This picture is of the old island in our kitchen.
Once I stained the wood, I was in love.

Contractor Steve created 4 floating shelves and a custom cabinet piece for our new kitchen.

From the beginning I knew I wanted those 5 pieces to be the same color as our old island.

Little did I know how maddening that would be.

The custom pieces are made of maple.

Maple is an extremely hard wood.
Stain does not soak into maple as it does the cedar I used around my old island.

After several trips to the paint store and 3 quarts of wrong-colored-stain later, I had given up.

I did not want anything painted in my kitchen, and I knew now, I was going to have to paint.
Deciding chalk paint was the only way to go, I headed down to the local store which sells Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.

I had used chalk paint on a high-use coffee table last year.  

There is not one scratch, not one chip, not one peel.  NOT ONE.

I knew this would be the perfect medium.

My only hesitancy came with the color.

They all seemed too light.
What I thought would be the easiest part of the remodel, had become the most difficult.

I was sad.

Diving in head first, I started the project.

When I put the first swipe of wax on, I was in love.

My heart soared as I knew this was going to be beautiful.

And perfect.

Oh, so perfect.

Here is what I did.

Equal parts Annie Sloan French Linen and Coco.

I mixed these together and painted 2 coats onto each shelf.

Black Wax

After the paint dries, I used the Annie Sloan wax brush and covered the piece with the black wax. 

Dark Wax

Once the black wax dried for 24 hours, I followed with a coat of the dark wax.  This color is a strong brown color and gave the perfect touch in making the shelves more greige than grey.

Once I was finished, I was so excited, I may have gotten teary-eyed.

Ok, I did.

I was just so happy.

OH MY GOODNESS you guys - just look at how closely the two colors match!
The piece I am holding in the middle is a stained piece from my old island.
The background piece is the shelf.

The wax truly was the magic touch.

It added the perfect color tones and brought out so much of the character of the shelves.

Here is a look at the before, during and after.

 Be still my heart.

Next : the shelves reveal!