A very common question in the shop is how to ‘antique’ a piece of furniture. There isn’t a single answer for that, in fact, I use different methods for antiquing something, depending, but a glazed antiqued finish is a simple and frequent choice for me. Hi, Liz here.
Fusion Clear Glaze is what I’m using to create this glazed antique finish.
It is a water-based product that you can add whatever color of Fusion Mineral Paint you want to it and create a custom glaze color.
In a nutshell, this glaze product is intended to go over the painted finish creating a translucent layer on top of the painted finish. Typically, I’m going for an aged, antiqued finish, so to layer some brown glaze on top creates the faux ‘dirt’ that would have happened over 100 years, right?
This glaze isn’t a super durable finish, so if it’s a tabletop or something that will get a lot of wear and tear, you’d definitely want to top coat it with something that is durable, such as Fusion Tough Coat, a wipe on poly finish. However, on this project I’m going to show you here, it is the sides of this small chest of drawers that received the glazed antique finish, so I didn’t feel the need to top coat that.
So to start with, here’s what the chest of drawers looked like when I first bought it.
If you look closely at the picture, you’ll see that someone tried to sort of spray paint it… it was a pretty awful finish. But the actual piece of furniture was sturdy and a lovely little piece just begging for a fresh start.
For the new glazed antique finish, I started by first washing the chest with Fusion TSP Alternative, then scuff sanded it and because it was solid mahogany, I primed the drawers and sides with Bin shellac-based primer to ensure sealing off the tannin bleed through.
Putty Fusion Mineral Paint is the base color on this chest. It’s a lovely neutral very light taupe/oatmeal color. Two coats for full coverage.
After the 2nd coat was dry, I went over the piece and sanded parts to distress. When I do this, I try to sand areas that would be on the edges and where I imagine paint would have gotten worn off over the past 100 years being moved and such. So not every single edge gets sanded, or that would look very fake… this is meant to look faux, not fake. LOL
I mixed a bit of Fusion Mineral Paint color ‘Chocolate’ into some glaze… about 10% paint to the glaze, and stirred it up.
The whole idea of using paint in the glaze, instead of just paint, is it is more translucent than just paint alone, and it has a much longer ‘open time’, meaning it’ll stay wet longer once applied, so you have more time to wipe back and get the exact amount you want before it dries.
Using one of the artists brushes, I liberally brushed on the Chocolate Glaze in a small section and immediately wiped it back with a dry lint free cloth.
Leaving more of the glaze in the corners gives the appearance of that aged antique (100 year old dirt) look.
Where the wood edge was sanded in the distressing part, the glaze will color it dark brown, which is perfect for this look too.
Edges and details like on the front are easy, but what about the large flat sides?
For the sides, I randomly brushed/smeared on some glaze.
Then, using the lint free cloth, I wiped back most of it.
Where it just was too dark for my liking, I spritzed it with some water using the continuous spray bottle, (perfect because it’s a fine mist, not a stream of water).
Giving it a final wiping to remove the excess glaze.
Fusion Glaze does take a while to dry… depending on how thick you’ve applied it, it might take a day to dry.
This is a simple way to achieve a lovely glazed antique finish!
The top of this chest of drawers received a couple coats of Fusion Cappuccino color Stain and Finishing Oil, a lovely contrast to the aged Putty sides.
I like a faux finish to look more organic, hand created… Up close, you can see the glazed antique finish isn’t uniform, perfect in an imperfect way.
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Here are more posts from my DIY blog about redoing something:
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