Busy Butterbug: Resident paints trending product into garden spotlight

Inviting arches, worn brick paths and a green utopia hint at a French romance a world away.

Rustic chairs and iron décor bare semblance to a surprising cottage, etched into the fabric of Historic McKinney.

Karla Ritchey's home beckons of creative secrets, but there's only one: Chalk Paint.

"You don't have to sand, strip or prime anything," said Ritchey, a teacher of 29 years who retired into North Texas' distributor of the England-born paint. "That's the beauty of it."

Since she discovered inventor Annie Sloan's product a few years ago, the beauty abounds. Used on walls, shutters, furniture, floors -- anything, really -- the water-based, quick-drying Chalk Paint decorative paint has "taken the United States by storm," Ritchey said.

And has made its way to the D-FW area through her. About two years ago, nearly two decades after Sloan put Chalk Paint on the English market, Ritchey became one of the first 12 distributors, or stockists, in the U.S. There are now more than 200.

But first came the workshops, which Ritchey still teaches every month in McKinney. She attended Annie Sloan School, training for distributors, and her classes outside the classroom commenced.

Her days as home economics Teacher of the Year in Garland and Van Alstyne are over, but the educating continues.

"This was a way I could sell a wonderful home décor product and keep teaching," she said. "It all just kind of went hand-in-hand."

Indeed, all in two months. She and her husband Steve married March 25 of last year, then a month later started Lady Butterbug, a workshop-sales combo business featuring Sloan's quick-finish paint and wax products.

Workshop participants learn to apply it to their home and garden elements, like urns, iron fencing and statues. Ritchey gives them a notebook of Chalk Paint possibilities, though her home's cottage-like surroundings prove noteworthy enough.

"I wanted to bring the Chalk Paint into my garden so I could show customers that it's for furniture, but can also be used outside," she said.

The product's wonder didn't fall on deaf ears or dry brushes with Ritchey, who said she's been refinishing furniture since she was 12. With Chalk Paint, projects that typically take five or six coats are done in one or two.

It can be applied to interior and exterior surfaces and furnishings, even fabric, has very low VOC (volatile organic compound) content, and has little to no odor. It's good for old and new appeal.

"It's very fast and very easy," she said. "You just start slapping it on, and it gives you a very vintage look. It can really make it look like a 100-year-old piece of furniture when it's not."

Ritchey's garden -- a habitat of colorful plants and walkways -- looks like the work of so many years, but it took just five. She bought the adjacent house, built in 1952, from the previous owners, the Houstons, a prominent McKinney family.

Overgrown trees, rocks and dirt awaited. She spent her days teaching and nights gardening, often "until I fell into my bed," she said, and the landscape became a beautiful escape, one at which passers-by and garden magazines now marvel.

Giant piles of porch stone turned to stepping paths, 1,600 buried bricks were uncovered, and Ritchey did most of it.

"Once I get onto a project, I'm kind of a maniac," she said.

Her other constant project centers on Chalk Paint, which is sold at My Favorite Room in downtown McKinney, Frisco Mercantile, and Uptown Country Home in Dallas. It's soon to be at Plaid Peacock in Roanoke.

Ritchey is the DFW/North Texas stockist of Chalk Paint, one whose business title will soon be trademarked. Her daughter called her a butterfly who "flits around from project to project," and Steve calls her "Bug," hence Lady Butterbug.

And while buzz seems to surround her home (to be featured in the February/March 2013 issue of Flea Market Garden Magazine), Ritchey keeps it around her favorite product.

She has surrounded her backyard greenhouse with Chalk Paint-finished tables, chairs and a fireplace mantle. She recently used just a fourth of a cup of the paint to finish a rustic, European-style glider.

"For maybe $150, you can totally redo your kitchen cabinets and have a completely different look," she said of the paint. "It adheres to almost anything."

Also benefits of her outside Chalk Paint décor are bird baths, shutters, a propeller, and the front door. Driving by, one nearly feels out of place.

Among flat grass yards and edged landscapes, there's no hiding the Ritchey cottage.

And its secret is out.

"Usually the desired effect is kind of a shabby European look," Ritchey said. "Depending on how you handle the paint and the wax, you can get almost any look you want."

For the shops' addresses, store hours and Ritchey's workshop schedule, visit ladybutterbug.com.

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