How to restore old furniture with paint and glaze. Give it an aged look with distressing, dragging, dry-brushing. It is quick and easy and best of all cheap.

Do you have some old, dresser, desks or tables that you are not sure what to do with?

Why not try refinishing them? It is fun, easy and inexpensive.

Here is an idea for restoring old furniture. Depending on what you are restoring (the type of surface) you will either need oil or latex paint and glaze. You will need a fine grade sand paper, cheesecloth, approximately four-inch paint brush (how many depends on the amount of colors you choose) turpentine, a few plastic containers and newspaper (for drips).

There are different textures you can apply when restoring furniture. Glazing and dragging with oil base are the textures I used for my projects. It was extremely simple and it did not take much of my time. Here is what I did.

1) Wash the area with TSP (it is recommended to use this before painting anything)

2) Once the area is dry, lightly scuff with sandpaper

3) Mix paint and glaze, I used paint glaze to start for a base color (its your preference) the higher content of glaze the lighter the shade and vice versa.

4) Test your mix on a thin piece of cardboard (cardboard usually is not to absorbent) be sure to try out your cheesecloth to see what type of pattern you are getting.

5) Once you have established your base (glaze/paint mix, it is time to paint)

6) Take your 4-inch brush and paint approximately a 12x12-inch area with your lightest shade. Now take a piece of cheesecloth and crumple it slightly. Brush the cheesecloth on the painted area (it is the glaze that makes the paint workable)

7) Proceed with this step to finish the first coat on the piece of furniture.

8) Once this coat is dry, lightly scuff the outside edges with sandpaper.

9) Take a slightly darker shade and apply to the outside edges (ex: for a dresser, apply the darker shade to the four front edges per drawer, this creates a shadowed look)

10) Again, rub the cheesecloth according to the pattern you want.

Another option instead of cheesecloth is dry brushing. Take your brush along the wet mix and see the defined lines it creates. This technique can also give an aged look.

With one of my projects I scraped a large rock along the outer edges, the parts that normally get worn over time.

This scraping enhanced the aged look.

Any type of painting or texturing is trial and error. The above steps worked well for my restoration projects.

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