DIY: Distressing Furniture

Remember when I said I wanted a desk (see here)? Well, my super sweet hubby surprised me last weekend when I got home from a work trip with this:



He found it on the side of the road at the end of June (way before I was talking about wanting a desk), and was going to fix it up for me for my birthday. But when I told him how much I wanted a desk, he gave it to me early! He took the icky brown finish off and took it down to the wood (I don't have a picture of what it looked like before). He even made room for it in our office/dining room!

I love the look of distressed furniture. My dining room table is white distressed, so I decided to do the same with my desk (because it is going to be in the same room).

What you need:



2" to 3" paint brush
A flat color paint to go on the bottom (I chose a yellow- "Honey Toast" by Olympic). This color will go on first
Paste Wax
Old rag, for applying paste wax
A second paint to go on top (it needs to be mixed with glaze) I used "Betsy's Linen" by Valspar
Sandpaper, nothing too terribly harsh



Step 1:

Paint your first coat on the piece of furniture



Let it dry really well (24 hours)

You don't need to paint perfectly, or even do 2 coats. You want some wood showing through

Step 2:
Go over the whole piece with paste wax.



Let dry for 1 hour.

Step 3:
Paint with your second paint (the paint/glaze mix)





Let dry overnight, but not for a full 24 hours

Step 4:
Sand paper off some of the top paint to reveal bottom coat and wood. Do it in areas that would be worn down first- corners, edges, legs

Do see my yellow peaking through?

I didn't do a lot of distressing for 2 reasons:

1. Over time it will naturally distress some

2. I had a lot of spots where the wood showed through, so I didn't want to go overboard

I used these cute knobs from Anthropologie on my drawers





Ready for the big reveal?

Before:



After:

I now want to distress every piece of furniture in our apartment... and my parents house... and anything else I can get my hands on! I still need to get a chair for it. Thats on my To Do list for next weekend.