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In this video, I want to go over a simple and effective technique that anyone can use to get that perfect distressed look for your woodworking projects. I've seen this done on chests, tables, dressers, armoires, and bookcases, and quite frankly it looks good just about anywhere you apply it.
There are, however, a few key points to keep in mind as you move forward with this type of work, and I'd like to walk you through them personally to make sure your project goes as smoothly as planned.
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0:00
In this video I want to talk to you about what I call distressable finishes
0:05
And by that I mean a finish that has been first prepared with either chalked
0:12
paint or milk paint. I'm going to be telling you more about those two things in a moment
0:17
So a finish that's been prepared with this kind of paint but intentionally worn
0:22
So it looks old and kind of nice really. And another feature of the distressable
0:28
finishes that as the bumps and dings and wear and tear of everyday life start to appear on
0:35
your wood surface it's just going to look better because the irregularities are supposed to be
0:40
there. So before I get into this demonstration of applying this kind of finish to this piece of wood
0:47
I just like you to take a look at some of the things I have made and finished in this way
0:53
There's a small blue cabinet. It's got the blue milk paint in that case. It's been distressed
1:01
There's also a white pine trunk in our living room. Also distressed. There's a bookshelf as
1:12
well that I've built and actually applied a milk paint finish to after the fact when I wanted to
1:19
change the look of the bookshelf. I've also done chairs. Chairs work really well. In fact if you
1:25
find some chairs, some wooden chairs for sale in a flea market or something like that, they very
1:30
often have some kind of a lacquer finish on them or something like that. They often don't look all
1:35
that good. A very good way to make that look better without all the hassles of stripping a
1:41
chair which is enormous is just to apply milk paint or chalked paint to that chair and then
1:47
distress it down. You can see that in these blue chairs here that I've finished too
1:52
But for now we're going to get busy. Now this piece of wood here, it's just some construction
2:02
grade spruce. In fact nothing fancy. It's got a coat of stain on it now. Now you don't need
2:09
to stain first before you apply chalked paint or milk paint any kind of distressable finish like
2:15
that. But I like to do it because especially with lighter colored paints and I'm going to be
2:20
applying some white chalked paint here. With the lighter colors when you apply the distressing
2:26
so essentially a controlled wearing through the finish, you get the darker wood coming out and it
2:33
really looks nice. Now especially in this case with wood that's this light, if I put milk paint
2:39
on here or chalked paint and I wore through, you'd hardly really notice because this is very light to
2:44
begin with. That's why we do the stain ahead of time. Not essential but it makes it look better
2:51
It gives it a more authentically old kind of look. So milk paint. This is an excellent brand. I've
3:01
used this for years. I first discovered this when was it 1987 I think in a cabinet shop where I
3:07
worked. We used to make solid wood kitchen cabinets and sometimes we'd finish them with this stuff
3:13
which is a powder. This is the stuff right here. You mix it with water. You want to power mix it
3:21
because it doesn't really mix all that easily and you want a homogenous mix. So you'd want to use
3:28
something like this following the directions for dilution of course. This is my mixing paddle in
3:36
my electric drill and I use it for all kinds of things. It's an old spade bit. It used to be for
3:41
drilling wood. I ground off the central point in the middle mostly so I can get down into the bottom
3:47
of cans. Now the chalked paint that I'm going to be applying now comes pre-mixed and ready to use
3:53
You still do need to mix some though because stuff settles out and so I'll just mix this now. It's
4:02
going to take a lot less mixing than if I was using the milk paint because it's already mixed
4:09
It just needs to be stirred. Now if you're careful you can kind of get the drill going faster and see it sets up a kind of a
4:37
current of turbulence in the can. You see how it's automatically pulling stuff up from the bottom
4:43
and kind of stirring it in. You want to be careful though. If I were to pull this out right now I'd
4:49
get covered in paint and so would the camera so that would be no good. But we're almost there now
4:54
Almost perfectly homogenous. There we go. Nice and even in color. So chalked paint and milk paint are
5:10
paint and by that I mean they're opaque when they go on. They won't remain opaque if you choose to
5:18
distress the finish. Now you don't have to distress the finish when you're using these things. It just
5:22
happens to be my favorite way of using this stuff. It's very nice to use. I mean I don't recommend
5:29
you drink the stuff or anything but it seems very very non-toxic. There's no odor. It's very easy to
5:39
get along with. Doesn't dry particularly fast which is a good thing. Now you might be wondering why
5:47
couldn't I do this with regular paint? I've got some white house paint in the basement. Can't I
5:53
just put it on a stained surface and let it dry and then and then work my way through? It's a
6:00
little bristle from the brush there. The answer is no you can't and that's because modern paints of
6:07
the sort that you might put on your house are designed to resist wearing. So they don't distress
6:12
very well at all. They're made to resist wear which is what you want on a on a wall or a ceiling
6:19
or something in your house but it's not what we want when we intend to sand through and make it
6:29
look pretty in a worn-out antique kind of way. Get another bristle here. It's not unusual. I like to
6:39
use these inexpensive disposable brushes. They're about a dollar each or less than a dollar. I wash
6:48
them out if I'm using anything that's washable but if I'm using a solvent-based product I'll
6:56
just discard the brush. I'd rather throw out the brush than dirty you know half a quart of
7:04
of mineral spirits or something and have to have to dispose of that. So I've done everything I can
7:13
on this piece now. You'll notice a couple of things. Brush marks are pretty obvious. That
7:19
will get less so as this dries but there still will be some dark streaks from kind of the low
7:26
of the application after just one coat. So if I was going to coat this and I intended just to keep
7:35
it undistressed with a kind of you know just an opaque paint then I would give it another coat
7:42
But for now I probably don't need to give it another coat. I might coat it again depending
7:48
on how it looks when it dries before I go to distress it. I'm gonna wait and let this dry
7:54
and in this video we're gonna come back when it's dry and then I'm going to show you the
7:58
distressing process. So stay tuned for that. We're just going to put it aside. I'm gonna let it dry
8:04
for at least half a day maybe a day and then I'll show you how to use abrasion to bring out
8:12
that nice distressed antique look that just keeps getting better over time. So here we are back
8:21
again. The white chalked paint is now completely dry and I'm ready to do a little bit of distressing
8:26
If you remember there was some dark stain underneath this to help the distressing show
8:31
through and as I explained earlier in the video you can see some brush marks here. This is just
8:37
where the chalked paint is thinner in some places than another where the bristles used to be. Now
8:44
that may or may not be a problem if you're distressing. Certainly it is a problem if
8:48
you're not distressing and there's some people who use chalk paint and milk paint and don't
8:53
distress it at all because it's it's flat and when you get it in colors is kind of an antiquey pastel
8:59
color kind of thing which which looks nice. So you don't necessarily need to distress it but we're
9:06
gonna distress it now. Depending on how much distressing I'm gonna do those lines may or may
9:11
not be a problem. I'm just gonna go ahead now since this is just a sample just to show you how things
9:17
look. So distressing is essentially controlled wear. It's a bit of an artistic process because
9:25
you have to decide where the wear is gonna show through and where it's not and how much and so
9:31
it's a matter of opinion and judgment but essentially it comes down to two things sanding
9:37
by hand and sanding with a machine. A quarter sheet finishing sander is what you want to use
9:43
Don't use anything more aggressive so that would be a random orbit sander even a small five-inch one
9:49
too aggressive. So this is just about right and you don't want to use coarse sandpaper. It's gonna
9:55
be fairly fine. I've got a piece of 220 here. There's 220 on the sander. I've got a piece of
10:03
180 here too. We can try that by hand. It's just a matter of judgment and and really getting going
10:09
So before I use the machine I just want to show you something quickly here. This is what I was
10:14
telling you about before. Look at that. Look at all that. That is what you want in a distressable paint and
10:21
that will never happen with modern paints because they're designed to resist this. They're designed
10:27
to be tough so you can't sand them like this. Now I'm already starting to go through there. You see
10:35
some of the sort of that distressing kind of appearance. Once again as I said it's a judgment
10:42
call. Depending on what you're distressing you have to use your imagination to think where where
10:49
where could have happened more thoroughly than other places and you kind of simulate that but
10:56
let's just see what the sander will do as we continue. Well that didn't take long did it? That's probably about as far as I would take this. If you remember
11:25
earlier in the video there was a shot of a white pine wood trunk. It was originally is a purchased
11:32
item. I didn't make it but it was finished dark chalk painted it white distressed it. It looks
11:38
something like this. Doesn't take very much and as you can see in this case there really would have
11:44
been no need for a second coat because those those brush marks well they're mostly gone now and the
11:51
ones that are there just kind of fit in to this sort of a worn surface and you can see you can
11:58
how the stained color came through. If I had done this on the other side wouldn't look nearly as
12:06
nice because we wouldn't have the darkness showing through. So there you go the distressable finish
12:13
using the chalked paint like this or milk paint
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