Distressing Painted Furniture

How do you make distressed furniture?

That is one of most asked questions I get after I’ve made a painted piece of furniture.  So I thought I’d share how I do that.

First off let me say the projects I make are typically not beat up. I really do not believe that after going through all the time & effort to build the thing that I should then be beating the hell out of it!

Now if in the building process I find I mistakenly cut a piece too short or did something stupid that can’t be fixed… well then its game on! (But at this stage I’m taking no survivors. I’m making firewood!)

Anyway, back to my method…

Once I have completed the woodworking part of the piece I go ahead & stain the entire piece. Let that dry & then spray a few coats of shellac to seal it.

From here, I tape off or take off the part that isn’t getting painted & go through the finishing of it how I normally would.

Once I have that part completed I turn my attention to the paint.

While I’m mixing the acrylic paint (I use Olde Century Colors paint) I map out in my mind how I’m going to paint the piece in sections.

For example in the bench project I just did I painted it in this order:

• the support rails
• one end
• then the other end

Once I’ve completed a section & it’s almost dry I take a soaking wet (but not dripping) wash cloth & wipe the paint away where I think it might wear & tear. Then I wipe away a few spots just to give it a little more effect.

From here I rinse out the wash cloth & I move on to the next section & repeat the process until the entire piece is completed.

After completely drying I look at where I’ve exposed the stained parts & see if I might have gone overboard. If I have I simply repaint that part of that section.

When I’m satisfied with what I see I reassemble the project & put it to use.

And that’s how I go about making a distressed painted project. I know there are a lot of other ways to do this but let’s face it I’m lazy & this method is simple.

I mean it did take me 7 years to build the piece!

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March 28th, 2011