As part of my Shabby Chic Foyer makeover I decided to distress my current foyer table instead of buying a new one. I will say it isn’t perfect but overall I am pleased with how it turned and am thrilled to have been able to cut costs by doing it myself. Over the past few months I’ve shared several distressing techniques and this one is very similar to the others only I did a few things different, so I wanted to share a tutorial that shows you how to distress a piece of furniture since most of my distressing has been with smaller decorative items such as picture frames, step stools and wooden signs.
Below is a Before and After Picture
What you will need:
- Sandpaper
- Paint
- Razor Blade (Used for Distressing)
- Polycrylic/clear coat
- Candle
Step 1: If your piece of furniture has hardware on the drawers remove the knobs, etc before doing anything
Step 2: No matter what color your piece of furniture is you are going to need to sand it down (just enough to get the top coat/clear coat off). Without sanding the top coat off it will be much more difficult to get your paint to stick and to get it to go on evenly so I thoroughly suggest not skipping this step (It’s not a fun step but will make the rest of your project so much easier).
As a side note, if your piece of furniture was originally black or some color other than the color you want to show through after distressing all you have to do is paint a coat of brown (or whatever color you choose to show through) on your furniture prior to painting your primary color.
Since my table was originally brown and I wanted brown to show through after distressing I only used one color, but I assure you I’ve had several pieces that I had to create a “wood” look by painting it brown first and it was a very easy.
Step 3: Take candle wax and rub it on the edges of the piece of furniture you’re distressing and any other areas that you want to distress, this will make the distressing process so much easier (Sorry I don’t have a picture for this step) but you can check out my DIY Distressed picture frame tutorial if you want to see what i’m referring to)
Step 4: Paint your piece of furniture, I ended up painting three coats
Step 5: Instead of using sandpaper like I have previously I used a razor blade and gently scraped the edges, I loved the way it added a rustic look (be careful if you try this method)! You can use a butter knife in place of a razor blade if you prefer to be a little more cautious, it may take a little longer to get to the bottom coat than with a razor blade but will still do the job! I used sandpaper to smooth out some of the rough areas.
Step 6: Apply a coat of polycrylic (aka clear coat) to keep your newly distressed piece of furniture in tip top condition
Step 7: If you have drawers on your furniture install the hardware (either use the old hardware that came on it or buy something new to give your piece of furniture a little flare). I decided to put a crystal knob on my drawer since I was going for a shabby chic look
And you’re all done
Do you find that this polycrylic can go over white paint without turning it yellow??
Hi Rhonda, sorry for the delay, I had my first child the day that you posted your comment so i’ve been a little preoccupied the past few weeks. The polycrylic that I used went on clear and didn’t discolor the table, but that’s def. a good question. If you fear that will happen you can always use minwax. It goes on clear as well. I hope this helps!! Good luck!
I love what you’ve done here and I commend you on getting any project, let alone something this scale, done with a new baby.
I tried your razor blade technique on the first piece, a server, I attempted to create the shabby chic look on. I think in certain places it looks like I removed to much of the paint in one area. Do you have any suggests as to how to fix it?
Thanks,
Kathi
Hi Kathi, Thank you so much for the compliments! Depending on what kind of paint you used or how you applied the paint you can take a small paint brush and paint over the area that you took to much off and then take a q-tip and dip it into fingernail polish remover with acetone and gently go over the area you re-painted to remove some of the paint so you can see through to the darker color. Hopefully that will be a quick fix!!! 🙂 As a side note, I discovered chalk paint after I re-finished my foyer table (Have you heard of chalk paint)? It works AMAZING on furniture, it goes on so smooth and is SOO easy to distress with. It seriously makes re-finishing a piece of furniture SOOOO much easier and it looks fabulous!! If you haven’t used chalk paint, you should check out my tutorial on how to make chalk paint, I also linked it to a post that shows how to distress with chalk paint 🙂 Thanks again for the compliments! I hope the info above is helpful!! 🙂 If you have any further questions that I can assist with please let me know, as I will do my best to help 🙂 Happy New Year!! ~Jessica
Hey Jessica,
Thanks for sharing your above article. I really like your above thought for making an old table became new. It’s really adorable . I came to learn lot’s of thing about making gorgeous of my older furniture through your above article.
I am been having trouble with a lot of my pieces turning yellow …I am using Polyurethane miniwax to seal it…I don’t what to do …I have been doing furniture for a while and this has just started