Faux Antiquing: How to Antique Furniture

An online tutorial on faux antiquing: in other words, do-it-yourself instructions for restoring and refinishing old furniture to look antique.

Here it is, a step-by-step guide to faux antiquing for beginners like me!

It's like magic.

From this . . .

. . . to this! Bam!

Materials:

• old piece of furniture
• plenty of sandpaper or a sander (with grit coarse enough to strip old finishing)
• steel wool (coarse) or (again) sander
• a candle/chunk o' disposable wax
• ink/permanent marker (optional)
• 1 can paint (base coat, latex)
• 1 container glaze
• a paintbrush (and little roller, helpful for bigger items)
• screwdriver
• rags

Step 1: Remove Hardware & Prep Workspace
Remove knobs, handles, screws, hinges, etc. from the piece and set aside. Set your piece in a good working space where you can paint and make a decent mess. Clean up for us was super easy; we spread out an old bed sheet in the room over some plastic tarp/tablecloth-type stuff and threw it all out when we were done.



Step 2: Protect Unpaintable Areas
Cover up any mirrors or places you don't want to paint. I didn't have masking tape or anything, so I tucked some saran wrap into the corners of this mirror and it worked beautifully:

 
Step 3: Sand
 Remove the old finish/varnish. With this piece, I wanted the dark stain to show through, but I took off the shiny varnish layer so the paint would stick. This took a while, but it was a pretty big piece. After sanding, vacuum up the sawdust and wipe down the wood with a damp rag for a clean painting surface.



Step 4 : Ink Corners (Optional)
I brushed some Indian ink around the corners to show through. It was an experiment, but it looked pretty cool in the end. You can also use a permanent marker to add some black touches on the finished product, but I think that looks better on carvings and more intricate designs. This piece didn't have much flare in the woodwork to accent, so I just focused on edges.



Step 5: Wax
Not your legs. Because you'll be removing paint from certain areas to give the piece a worn, antique-ee look, you use the candle to rub on the corners and areas where you want the paint to come off easily. This step was really helpful; once the paint dried, it took a lot of elbow grease to scratch it off again, but you could tell where the wax was. It really worked.



Step 6: Painting

The fun part: painting! I got a whole gallon of paint, but I didn't even use half the can for two coats on this massive piece of furniture. I chose a shade of humble gray and a taupe glaze, which really warmed it up in the end. I painted in the morning and scraped some off at (see the next step) night, and that was enough time for the paint to dry.

Coat One

The saran wrap was a go! Worked like a charm.

Coat Two

Don't forget the doors!

Step 7: Get that Worn Out Look
Use the steel wool to scrape off your base coat where you want the piece to look worn out: corners, around hinges and handles, etc. It looked kinda lame with such new-looking paint, but using the glaze really helped. I hated it at this point, but I loved it when we were done . . . so don't give up yet!

Step 8: Glaze

This is when my husband joined in to help me glaze. He went around painting the glaze on and I followed him with a rag. We used the rag-rolling technique, removing the glaze and texturing with a rag. I used an old towel with a good cotton-y grain to it.

*Note: The finished product had kind of a chalky, matte texture. I think it would have been awesome to spray or paint a coat of lacquer over it for some gloss and protection. I also hear that using a finishing wax (wax on, wax off) like Minwax^® Paste Finishing Wax is a good protecting agent that also smooths out the finish.

And let it dry!

Viola!
The finished product: a new place for books.

That was that. On the Monday before a Saturday housewarming party I picked up two halves of a large piece of beat up furniture ($15 per half) at Savers. I bought paint and materials on Tuesday (for about $60), sanded on Thursday (4 hours), prepped and painted and glazed on Friday (8-10 hours), and it was ready to put up on Saturday morning (although it wasn't totally dry for the party).

A really fun project. Totally recommend it.


*After three years, I just sold this piece to a young couple. Last week, actually. A young New Yorker bought it for his wife's birthday. They had a cute four-month-old. So while I miss this piece, I'm happy it's in a good home. And I filled the space with a bomb.com retro table and chairs. And if I kept everything I made, I'd end up on Hoarders.