Faux Finish Techniques for Cabinets

Limewash

• Limewash is a type of whitewash applied to finishes that dries to a matte, chalky appearance. You can easily simulate real lime finish with watered-down white paint. Mix a soft or off-white flat paint with water and brush over the surface of the cabinets. Use latex paint so that it won't yellow. Try various mixtures of water and paint to determine how transparent or opaque you want the finish to be. When the cabinets have dried, protect them with two coats of water-based clear lacquer. This leaves the limewash finish easy to wipe down and will help it last, even in a steamy kitchen or bath. Lacquer may lighten the white finish slightly, so don't skip the experiment stage when preparing to use this treatment on your cabinets.

Aging

• A couple of simple aging techniques can give cabinets a new "old" look with very little effort. Brush a darker glaze over light-painted cabinets. Before it dries or gets tacky, wipe away some of the glaze with a clean rag. This looks best when you wipe over detailing or along the edges where cabinets would normally show some wear. Another technique is to paint the cabinets and then paint over the first coat with a second coat in a different color. You can do this with multiple paint layers, but you can get the effect with as little as two coats. Once the top coat is dry, use fine sandpaper to remove some surface paint along the edges and in any place where the cabinet would be handled. The final result looks like an old, much-painted piece that has worn away from use to reveal an even older paint job.

Special Effects

• Give your cabinets a country look by painting them in a soft vintage color and then stenciling a design in the middle of the cabinet doors or along the borders. Stencils with coordinated designs for both large and border shapes are available at craft stores; for an original design, you can mix and match stencils. Stencils can be applied with sponged-on paint, or traced and hand-painted.

  Spattering paint is an interesting effect. For cabinets with paneling, paint the entire cabinet a light color, then spatter one or more contrast colors on the central panels. Flick a brush or comb with paint to get the spatter effect. Paint the cabinet borders in one of the spatter colors.

  Dragging gives an eye-catching vertical finish to cabinet paint. One method is to paint the cabinets and, once the paint is dry, apply a light coat of a contrasting glaze. Drag a dry, long-haired brush through the glaze one time, in one direction only, to remove some of the glaze in fine, vertical lines.