Do you love the look of shabby distressed furniture and would like to try doing it yourself? It’s an easy and fun way to give your own or flea market furniture a new life. Distressed furniture is beautiful and also easy to live with as it’s kid and pet friendly.
First, decide what you want to paint. Good candidates for the shabby/distressed look are vintage tables, chairs and chest of drawers. Make sure the piece is basically sound and functional, with no missing parts, that drawers glide smoothly, and the legs are not wobbly. Condition of the paint or finish is not important, in fact that can be a plus as these pieces can generally be found for less! Here is a small table I am going to paint as an example.
Thre is nothing wrong with this table, but I want to give it more drama.
Prep your furniture. Remove all hardware and set aside. Wash and dry the piece. If the furniture has missing veneer, whether you need to address that or not is up to you depending on how shabby you want the piece to be. You can fill in the missing the veneer with spackle, if you want a more polished piece. Once the spackle dries, you can sand smooth. Or, if you want like a very distressed piece, you can just paint.
To Prime or not to prime. The decision to prime is based on the original finish. If the original finish is mahogany or has heavy stains you will need to use oil based brush on primer
If the peice is heavily lacquered or varnished you will need to use a brush on, oil or water based primer.
If the finish is newer and or shiny you can use a spray primer.
For my example, I used a white spray primer as the finish was new and kind of shiny.
Pick a color. For the cottage look, I like a creamy white with a very slight yellow undertone. I find that Wal-Mart Colorplace flat wall paint in Cottage White works very well, but all brands have a good selection of white and you should be able to find something that works for you. Enamel paint has a tendency to roll when sanded so I don’t recommend it. If you want more a more durable finish, you can follow up with a clear protective coat (details later).
Brush it on. As you’ve probably heard before, the better paint brushes do a better job. That being said, the shabby style is very forgiving so I find the cheap brushes are satisfactory for this purpose. You will usually need 2 thin coats (let dry between coats) to cover a wood piece, sometimes 3. You don’t need to be excessively fussy here, but try not to have obvious drips or skips. You want fairly even coverage.
Above is my example table after the first coat of paint.
Now the table has two coats.
Sanding. Here is where the art comes in! What you are aiming for is to mimic the natural wear and tear of time. It goes much faster if you have a palm sander, but this can be done by hand. Using a medium grade sandpaper, sand along all the edges and a little more on the corners. Sand around where the knobs will be. On the legs I like to go about ½ around in several random spots. Some furniture looks better with light sanding just around the edges, other pieces look better with random sanding on flat spots as well. Look at a picture of some pieces you like as a guide. Don’t be afraid, you can always repaint and try again if you do too much. Alternatively you can take a sharp knife and run it along the edges.
Finish. If your piece will not receive heavy wear, I usually just finish off with a coat of orange oil furniture polish. This will seal the finish and also “ages” the paint so it doesn’t look so new. You can also finish with a coat of clear poly sealer, which will give you a more durable finish. Put back the knobs or put on new ones and you are done.
Here is my table with sanding and an orange oil finish.
Now, aren’t you proud you turned a flea market piece in to a shabby treasure!
.jpg)
