How to...antique a table!

Oh my words...it's raining here again, which is good for the earth, but bad for my septic tank.

UGH!  Everytime we have a "soaking rain," our septic drain fields get overloaded and then the toilet in MY bathroom doesn't flush til it's dry for several days again.  Awful.  I guess it'd all be fine if we wanted to fork over $2K to add more drainfields...but do you know how much house beautifying I could do with $2K!?!

ALOT!

But, in the meantime I do have some projects that have been happening around here lately...rain or shine!

<-----Like this table. It has the most beautiful lines that just got kinda lost with plain wood stain. So, you know I painted it!

Lately I've been dying to figure out how to create a room that looks more subdued...mellow, cozy, worn, fresh...you know, all of that!  Anyhow, my friend Emily at Crisp Interiors is amazing at doing just that!  We're going to do guest postings next week on one another's sites....I'm doing one on using color for her, and she's gonna teach us all how to make something fabulous with whites and neutrals!  I'm so excited.  You should be too...

For now though, here's how I'm transforming this lovely table!


Make sure to give it a light sanding just to rough it up a bit to help the paint adhere.  I wanted some wood to show through this, so I didn't prime it at all.  I dont' know if that's the right way to do it, but it's how I did it this time...and this for now is working just fine for me. (I do prime some pieces that I care more about though.) Then I painted it a creamy white color...who knows what color it was... was the same one I used on the headboard bench that I found in the Lowes reject bin of mis-tinted paint colors!

 I  let that dry overnight.  The the next day i strategically sanded it in the places I thought would see a little wear and tear in real life use.  If you notice how the table looked before, you could tell all of that, so I kinda just went back over those places with a sanding sponge to take off some of the cream paint that I'd just done the day before. See below....

I sanded along the lines of the top of the table, and also a little here and there on the edges of the higher carved areas... you know, the spots that would actually get bumped and worn over time.

Then, using antiquing glaze (This time I used Valspar antiquing glaze which had a grayish tint to it, but often I use Minwax Walnut stain) I rubbed it on and off sort of at the same time using a staining sponge.   Can you see the difference here from the just plain cream finish above?  I did the same thing on the sides, base, and feet of the table as well.  With this, you'll have the glaze soaking into the lower areas as well as "roughing up" the higher sections.  It also gives an overall darker feeling to the entire piece which I really like.  

There's something almost funny about how much I want my newer things to look old these days.  I'm actually adding glazes and stains to replicate the look of basically leaving something unattended in a barn for a couple of years!  Love it though!

And the final product....well here she is!  You'll have to excuse the dropcloth...I was just trying to get it done and take pictures for you quickly!  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I'd say it's quite a nice transformation!  What do you think?

Happy hump day!

- Logan