Tips for Decorative Painting for Furniture

Antiquing Glaze

• Transparent glaze tinted with raw umber provides painted furniture with an instant aged look. Brush it on and soften brushstrokes by stippling with a stiff brush or dabbing with soft rags. Allow the glaze to gather in cracks and recessed details for the most natural look.

Distressed Surface

• Make accidental damage and worn paint look intentional and shabby chic. Distress painted furniture items instantly by sanding their edges and corners with sandpaper. Use steel wool for a softer effect. For a truly worn look, hit painted surfaces with a hammer to create indentations and areas of chipped paint.

Folk Painting

• Milk paint covers the surface of many old painted furniture pieces. Create the look of colonial folk painting with stencils and glaze. Milk paint, casein and egg tempera provide a worn, matte look for a traditional stencil design. Apply a topcoat of antiquing glaze to age and protect your painted image.

Crackle Effect

• Crackle finishes happen when top layers of paint dry before lower layers. While this often occurs naturally over time, decorative painters create this effect quickly using glazes with different drying times, such as oil over latex. Rubbing dark glaze into the resulting cracks makes them more obvious.

Verdigris Patina

• A verdigris finish imitates the natural oxidation of bronze or copper. Teal-green glaze is applied over a dark metallic paint to achieve a faux verdigris patina. Stippling the glaze with a stiff brush disperses the blue-green topcoat, revealing hints of the metallic base coat.

Agate Inlays

• Decorative painters use simple tools and techniques to reproduce the look of agates and green malachite. A strip of cardboard dragged through glaze makes layers of ruffled, organic shapes, similar to the natural striations found in agates. Use faux semi-precious stones as small accents or faux marquetry on your furniture.