How to Antique Furniture with Shoe Polish

Antique furniture can be expensive, but you can make secondhand furniture look antique with a little bit of elbow grease. Shoe polish is a way to add an antique finish to any piece of wooden furniture. Also called "distressing" furniture, antiquing with shoe polish can make the dull bookcase or coffee table in your living room look more interesting. For the shoe-polish antiquing to look right, you have to distress the finish on the furniture first. The shoe polish can be applied over paint as well.

150-grit sandpaper
Paintbrush
Shoe polish
Cloth

Instructions

- 1
  Rub away certain parts of the furniture’s finish with the sandpaper. Concentrate on rubbing away the finish on places like the sides of the legs and the corners, which could naturally get worn down with age. Rub enough to scratch through the finish, but don’t remove all the finish on the piece.
- 2
  Apply the shoe polish with the paintbrush. Work the polish into nicks and grooves in the piece of furniture. Rub the polish onto the areas you sanded down as well.
- 3
  Wipe off any excess polish with the cloth. Leave enough polish on the piece of furniture that it looks old and worn.

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