Guest post by Cindi Pearce of Catalogs.com
via Flickr by AndyRob
For many of us, our furniture looks distressed because it has undergone years of abuse from raucous children and gnawing, clawing pets. It looks beaten up because it is.
However, there is a different kind of distressed look that simply evokes history and age, not torture. These items appear charmingly over-used and well-loved. They are appealing and homey, particularly in a cottage setting.
If you love the look of dresser drawers, wooden chairs and tables that have been around for centuries, you can approximate this look by using certain tools to create the impression that your new table has been around since your ancestors.
If you want to distress a piece of your furniture, keep in mind that you should not over-do it. Your objective is to acquire an aged look and not make the furniture look as though it were unintentionally dropped off the side of a cliff and then trampled by a herd of buffalo.
You should apply the distressing technique to certain areas of the furniture that would naturally be well-worn, such as the rungs on rocking chairs and bar stool, the top of tables, the feet of chairs, tables and dressers, and the edges and tops of chair. Leave the rest of the furniture untouched.
Spotlight specific areas, such as where the item of furniture would have received the most wear over the years, and go to work at that site.
Tools that you could use to distress your furniture include:
- wire brush
- drill
- fine black marker
- various textures of sandpaper including fine, medium and coarse
- wood file
- hammer
- mallet
- sock that contains hard items, including bolts and nuts
Use your imagination. You can utilize any item that you think will help you achieve the distressed look.
Another pointer is to use paint colors that were popular at the time the particular piece of furniture would have been in vogue. Do some research into the era and determine which hues were in favor. Many paint stores have lines of “heritage” or “vintage” colors.
Combine your paint colors if you so choose. You can use a painting spatula or a palette knife to apply paint to the furniture and this will highlight the arbitrary breaks in colors that will show up with the piece is sanded.
Worn-out sandpaper and other abrasives can be used. It will produce interesting results. While sanding, vary the pressure and the way your hand is positioned. Occasionally, sand the wood down to the bare wood to give the piece a lot of variation and visual interest.
Use liquid paint stripper that you can control while you are applying or pouring it to the piece. You may want to experiment with the length of time that the stripper is left on the piece according to achieve your desired outcome. You may want to leave it on for a longer or a shorter period. The time that the wood is exposed to the stripper will have a distinct bearing on the extent the layers of paint are removed. Sanding can not give you a clean break through the paint that stripping can.
You can produce ring marks using rims or lids that you have dipped into stain. After you make the mark you can distress it by sanding over it.
When distressing a chair, concentrate on the arms, where the most wear and tear would naturally occur. You can age the wood by using sandpaper to remove some of the paint but not too much, sanding with the grain. When you are finished sanding, smooth the arm ends with your wood file, filing in the direction of the grain.
For an even more distressed look, use your mallet and put a few dents in the chair arms. You can also put dents in the legs of the chair.
If you are really going for authenticity, use woodworking power tools such as a drill and a small drill bit, drilling several holes in a cluster in the back of the chair. This will look like woodworm.
Use a wire brush to create scratch marks along the back of the chair. Sand down the seat of the chair, because this is where it would naturally show a lot of wear and tear.
Step back and look at your woodworking project and the product of your efforts at various times. It may be useful to take a break and return to work after a short time so that your perspective is fresh. Remember, when artificially distressing furniture, the goal is to accomplish a look that recalls a real lifetime of use.
