How to Paint your furniture with an antique finish

There are various techniques that could be used but here are the 3 easiest and most well known.

Paint – Distress – Stain:

  1. This process involves basic painting and then some sanding by hand (try to avoid electric sanding methods as it will cause the piece to lose character).

  2. Once you have painted your piece to your liking, sand down the edges of the wood in some areas.

  3. Use a cloth with wood stain and gently brush over the newly sanded and exposed areas. Remember to wipe away any additional stain and leave behind what is meant to soak into the wood.

  4. If you like you can even paint a clear coat of varnish to protect your piece.

Paint – Dark Wax

This technique is considerably easy and particularly effective if one is using chalk paint.

  1. Paint the piece as you normally would.

  2. Then rigorously rub dark tinted wax all over the piece. Try to focus on the details of the piece as well as any beveled edges.

  3. Wipe away the dark wax so that it is mostly left in any cracks and crevices that are on the piece.

  4. A clear coat of varnish is not necessary for this type of antiquing.

Paint – Dark Glaze:

This is similar to the wax technique but this involves doing a dark glaze mixture after the painting of the piece.

  1. Therefore follow the same procedure in painting the piece.

  2. Then apply a dark glaze mixture that is either half dark or black paint blended with the half dark glaze mixture. Add a few drops of water to adjust the consistency to be easy enough to paint with but not runny enough to drip over the piece.

  3. Keep in mind that glaze dries very quickly so you must remove any unnecessary glaze quickly once you have painted the piece.

  4. If you have not wiped the glaze away in time it is possible to sand it away but at a risk of damaging your piece or giving it a different look.