
distressing painted furniture | tips & techniques
I’ve shared a lot of tips about distressing furniture through the years, but I decided I would tackle the subject again. I took pictures of the process as I worked on the Marzipan dresser I revealed yesterday for that very reason. So, here’s how the dresser looked once it was painted. It has two coats of MMSMP Marzipan with some Ironstone (white) painted on the trim, handles and carved details. Because I’m going to distress, I wasn’t too concerned with the white paint being perfect or completely opaque. It actually looks a little sloppy at this stage. Distressing serves a few purposes, then. It hides the imperfections in the painting, but it also brings out the details of the piece and adds a sense of age to the fresh coat of paint. I’m going to start with the basics…what is distressing? It’s more than just roughing up a piece. It’s about removing









