Creating A Distressed Finish On Furniture

This old cabinet, which was originally in my grandfather's woodshop, had great character with its battered finish. But remembering this post by the Thrifty Decor Chick I started to suspect trouble and tested the cabinet for lead paint.


The paint did prove to have lead in it, and I promptly sent the cabinet off to be striped by people who know how to do this type of work safely. Unfortunately, a lot of the character was taken away with the old paint. So now my goal is to recreate the worn look.


I started by painting on a layer of primer. As I began this step I had doubts, it looked pretty terrible, and I was sad to see the wood being covered up. But then it occurred to me that it shouldn't look great at this point, and in fact, the less careful I was painting on the primer the better the result would probably be. Ah, isn't that a great moment, realizing doing a task in a messy fashion is just fine?!


My next concern was where to stop the paint, do I paint a nice straight line between the interior and exterior? Then again I saw it just didn't matter...this piece is nearly a hundred years old, it should look rough around the edges!




After the primer dried it was time to paint on a layer of SW 7026 Griffen as the base color.


I am loving how the ProClassic paint is going on, this formula is very easy to work with.


If I was feeling doubt while painting on the primer, this first brush of color changed my mind. This just may work!


Again, I didn't worry about the paint being perfectly applied, so the job went quickly. At this point I started appreciating the fact that I hadn't gone overboard sanding the body of the cabinet. The paint didn't cover the cracks or make its way down into the little holes, and this has started to create the distressed look I am after.




Specks of primer also show through and I think this will help add layers to the final weathered look.


And look at the original hardware. I love how the pieces came back from being striped of paint, talk about patina. So these will remain just as they are.


The next step is to paint on the top color, SW 7044 Amazing Gray. Finally, I'll need to determine how much distressing to do, through sanding, scraping and who knows what else!

I think the Nester knows what she is talking about when she says, "it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful."