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Staining Wood Furniture - Distressing and Other Tips

By: Thomas Bridleman

If you have been to a furniture store lately, you've probably noticed that "distressed" furniture is all the rage.

Sadly, the furniture makers have done a relatively poor job, because the distressing is all done by machine, and you can always spot a pattern in their supposedly random distressing. For me, this makes it hardly worth noticing, much less buying.

Most people who are into bare wood furniture are "do it yourself" types who are constantly searching for new tips and tricks to make their results stand out that much more, and if you'd like to give your next piece of furniture a nice, natural, random distressed look, then read on.

Simply take a 3’-4’ length of chain and work the furniture over with moderately hard blows. Not too hard, as we don’t want to crack anything, but definitely hard enough to leave marks! Distress your bare wood furniture to taste, then sand and stand as normal. The “bruises” and indentations will be differently colored and the overall effect will be a rugged, weathered look that’s quite attractive.

I know, I know...there are some of you for whom this is an impossibility, and the thought of beating your furniture with anything makes you cringe.
And if you’re still uneasy about using that tip, here’s one that may be more to your liking.

When sanding your bare wood furniture in preparation for staining, sometimes it happens. As you’re bent over the wood, that bead of sweat that was building up on your forehead decides it’s no longer content there, and splat! Right onto the wood. If you just stain it at this point, you’ll have a watermark where the stain reacts visibly differently to that spot of the wood, so what to do?

Well, you could just write it off as a “character mark” and have done with it, but if you’d rather minimize its impact, finish sanding and wipe the piece with a tack cloth. Then, wipe the entire piece again, this time with a lightly damp rag. Let dry completely before proceeding. You might not be able to take the drop of sweat back, but you can minimize its presence with this simple trick.

Article Source: http://www.targetsearch.org/articles

To learn more about this and related topics, see Visit us at unpainted furniture, www.bare-wood-furniture.com/unpainted-furniture

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