Antiquing Furniture With Paint & Sand Paper

Distress your furniture to give it more character.

If you are aiming to create an eclectic, bohemian look for your home, antique your wooden furniture to emulate the look of aged pieces. This process, accomplished with paint and sandpaper, is a simple one that gives your home a worn look with little work. Natural wear comes with time, but if you want to antique your furniture without needing to wait for it to happen naturally, speed things up through introducing some abrasion.

Things You'll Need

• Drop cloth
• 2 colors of paint
• Paintbrush
• 100-grit sandpaper
• Mallet

Instructions

1. Set down a drop cloth to protect your work area and place your piece of wooden furniture on the drop cloth.

2. Paint the piece of furniture with the base coat, using a paintbrush. The base coat is mostly covered by the top coat, but it shows through after you abrade the piece, giving your furniture a hint of color.

3. Allow the paint to dry thoroughly. This can take up to 24 hours.

4. Paint the top coat on top of the base coat, covering it completely.

5. Allow the paint to dry thoroughly.

6. Sand down the wear spots on the piece of furniture using a piece of 100-grit sandpaper. Wear spots include handles, edges, feet and any other surface that will get touched often. Sand gently at first until you figure out how much wear you want. The harder you sand, the more worn the furniture looks.

7. Tap the surface of the furniture lightly using a mallet to give it some dings.