I have an old dresser I want to distress and make antique looking. I am wondering how to go about this with t

Question

I am wondering how to go about this with the least amount of trouble. It is pretty large with a big mirror on it.

Answer 1

Here is a site with many links on it for tips, techniques and even places that will do it for you!

http://interiordec.about.com/od/distressinghowtos/Distressing_Furniture_Tips_Techniques.htm

Answer 2

There are so many different things you can do to furniture to antique it. It would help if we had more information. For instance, do you want a painted finish or wood grain finish? Do you want a crackle finish or not?

Here's what I did to one of my own dressers to antique it.

First of all, I chose to use all oil base products for this project. My dresser had already been painted white in the past, so I just used that as my base coat.

I sanded the whole thing. To make it old looking, you can go ahead and sand through the paint in a few spots on corners and edges to expose the wood. Then, I distressed it with common household items, you can use things like a screwdriver, hammer, a chain, etc. Just scratch it, stab it, chip it, or whatever to distress it.

The next step is glazing, which takes a little patience. When I bought my glaze, I had them tint it to the color I wanted. The color I chose was blue, most people won't use blue. I took a paint brush and lightly brushed the glazing onto the surface of the dresser, and then immediately wiped it with rags. When you brush it on, you don't need to cover the entire surface. You should leave the glaze a little darker around the edges of the surfaces to give it a sort of shadow appearance. The glaze will go into the grooves, cracks, and scratches to make them stand out. Here's a tip, don't glaze too big of an area. Brush one surface at a time, then wipe it so that it looks almost like you can see a wood grain in the paint.

After the glaze was dry, I lightly sanded the whole thing again with a fine sand paper. I also went ahead and sanded right through the paint in a few more spots to make it look old and distressed.

Finally, I used a satin varnish finishing coat. The satin sheen varnish is a little harder to find than the semi-gloss, Home Depot and Lowe's didn't carry it. I found it at a paint shop. I chose to use a satin because I think it helps the furniture look more antiqued. Let it dry and you're done.

Answer 3

I'll assume its wood, unpainted. Here's the easiest, fastest way. Get some varied-grain sandpaper, 4 or 5 shades of spray stain (wood stain in an aerosol spray can), and a tube of dark green acrylic paint. First, remove all hardware. Then, using the biggest grain sandpaper, sand all the edges of the dresser...every place there is a line, corner, bump, etc. Then, go to the next biggest grain and do the same thing, keep going with finer and finer sandpaper. Start with the darkest spray stain and "spot paint" the dresser. Be as unstrategic as possible as you spray and don't try to cover the whole thing. Use a very fine sandpaper and lightly sand parts of the spots that you sprayed (always sand with the grain). Go to the next darkest stain, do the same thing, and then repeat the sanding. Keep going until you get to the lightest stain. When its all finished, give it a good oiling with some minwax and Old English. It'll look grand.

Answer 4

To antique it, you would just use a glaze (paint mixed with glaze medium you can get from a paint store), and use a rag to rub it over the dresser. It works best when the dresser is already basecoated in a light colour like white or beige, then you take a glze of light brown and rub it overtop. You can also use crackle glaze (found at art supply stores), and this makes it even more "aged" looking

Answer 5

The first step is to determine if your dresser is of an appropriate style to look antique. If it has modern styling, it will just look sh!tty if you bang it up. Once you have decided that you have a decent piece of furniture for distressing, here's about what you do. Apply some sort of finish (Paint, varnish, laquer, shellac) then, strategically dent it in such a way that it looks like it has received AUTHENTIC wear, if it doesn't look like random, NORMAL use it will look sh!tty. Next apply a dark glaze so that it makes interior corners and any dents look like they have gotten 100-300 years worth of grime in them. Now apply a clear top coat of your desired sheen.

Answer 6

I had one, and heres how I did it.

I painted the dresser with a dark brown paint, and after that dried I painted it solidly a nice off white. I then took sandpaper to the edges and bumps to bring a bit of the white off and show some “age” underneath. I also hit it in a few strategic places with a chain. Walla – antiqued.

Answer 7

Get a long piece of chain, wrap one end around the dresser and the other around your rear bumper and drive.

Answer 8

Chain it to the back of the fastest vehicle you have access to and drive 30 miles and back at top speed. JK

Answer 9

You can get kits at Lowes and Home Depot to do this