How To Refinish Wood With A Distressed Look
Posted on: 7 January 2015
Rustic and industrial chic are very big these days when it comes to decor. Using a lot of iron, oil-rubbed bronze, and distressed wood in your home's decor is a great way to get this type of look. If you have wood furniture that just doesn't seem to fit into this new type of decor, you can change it yourself using a few different distressing techniques. They're fairly simple and great to use for kitchen tables, end tables and cocktail tables. See below for a few distressing techniques you can do yourself.
Sanding
If you like the color of your piece of furniture and are just looking to distress it a little bit, you can gently sand portions of it with a light grit piece of sandpaper to give it an aged look. This works especially well with pieces of furniture that are painted. Sand the corners or edges of your tables to allow the natural wood color to show through. Sand portions of the table top, but only do a little bit, so it looks more natural.
Beating
If your furniture piece is just a little too new looking, you can beat it with a hammer. Use either end of the hammer to rough it up a bit. Take some heavy chains or a bag of bolts, and beat it to give it a different look. Be sure to use several different objects to keep it from looking too uniform. Stain your piece with the stain color of your choice. The stain will fill in the dents and scrapes to give it an aged look.
White-Washing
White-washing is a technique in which you use a mixture of water and white paint. The mixture depends on how much paint cover you are looking for, the more water you use, the less paint cover you will have, and vise versa. Use an old rag to wipe the paint mixture off after painting it on with a paintbrush. This will give it an aged look, with just a hint of paint. This technique is best used when the wood beneath is sanded down enough so the water/paint mixture can soak into the wood.
Staining
The process of using stain to distress furniture works well on painted wood surfaces. Take any color of stain and apply with a paintbrush. Wipe off any excess using an old rag. The stain will give your paint an aged look, as it brings out the natural grain in your wood and darkens areas of your wood. Aging with stain is a little harder to work with than any of the other techniques. Be sure to use stain that doesn't have any gloss in it, so you don't end up with shiny portions of your furniture.
Distressed wood looks great with industrial chic and rustic decor, but don't go overboard distressing all of your wood furniture. You may end up with a different type of look than what you were going for. For more tips, speak with specialists like Granddad's Refinishing, LLC.
Share