How to Give Furniture a Vintage Look

by admin on November 17, 2013

 

Vintage-looking furniture is appreciated by a wide range of people. If you want to give a unique look to a piece of furniture or fit it into a certain decorative style as the Parisian vintage, Victorian or rustic, you can very well use the Antiquisation technique. With minimal investment, a table, chairs or your favorite cabinet will look old and spectacular. If you are interested in Antiquisation, you should also check out these cool vintage phones that will look great on a vintage-looking coffee table. And here’s what you need to do to make your furniture look truly vintage.

1. Sand the piece of furniture

If you are unsure of how skilled you are at reconditioning furniture, it is recommended that you practice on a smaller object, a piece of wood or a photo frame. If the piece of furniture that you want to convert is unfinished wood, things are easier. You just have to clean dust traces and smooth surface with fine sandpaper.

However, if the wood was has paint or varnish on it, it is recommended to clean the surface with coarse abrasive paper – to remove the paint or varnish. After that, use sandpaper to smooth the surface.

If the piece of furniture has a very thick coat of varnish, you can apply a thinner for paint and varnish, which you can find at any hardware store or interior design store, before starting the sanding process. After sanding, remove fine dust with a soft cloth.

2. Apply beeswax

After you have cleaned the surface, the next step is to apply beeswax on the most used places that will get an antiqued look – edges, handles, arms, legs. It is advisable to use furniture wax made from a blend of beeswax and linseed oil. Wax can be applied with a soft cloth or brush.

3. Apply paint

You have two options at hand, which depend on wood color and the paint color you choose. The first option is to apply one coat of paint, preferably water based. If you want a more colorful piece of furniture, opt for the application of two coats of paint.

If you choose the first way, here’s how:

• Apply a base coat (yellowish-white, beige, yellow).

• After waiting up to 24 hours to dry thoroughly the first coat of paint, sand the wood well to remove most of the paint.

• Areas that have been waxed before applying paint should be scraped off with a wire brush until the paint is removed 80-90%, then apply a new coat of wax.

• Apply the second coat of paint (you can opt for the color you want: white, black, brown, light blue, light green, but make sure you choose “vintage colors”) and let it dry.

• Rub the waxed areas again with a wire brush until wood starts to show.

• Sand again with fine sandpaper all over.

• Apply a protective coat of wax or varnish.

If you choose the second way, you follow basically the same steps as in the first option. The only difference is that, this time, you are using a single color of paint.

To further customize the piece of furniture, you can paint it with floral or geometric details

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