You’ve most likely seen some whitewash wood furniture that looked amazing in someone’s house, a home decor magazine or in a store and wondered, how do you whitewash wood furniture? And that’s why we’ve put together our complete DIY, on how to paint your existing wood furniture in a whitewash finish. Whether this furniture is for your bedroom, your kitchen or a living room, such furniture never seems to go out of style. The great news is that this DIY project is easy and it doesn’t take too much time. After all, whitewashing furniture is a simple process of adding a thin coat of white paint which leaves the wood exposed for its natural beauty. Now that you have a basic understanding of what whitewashing furniture is, let’s get to it.
1. First Step on How To Whitewash Furniture: Gather all tools needed & prep the furniture
Whether you are working on a large piece of furniture or a small dresser or coffee table, the same process still applies along with the tools needed. So let’s start with what you need first:
- 100-grit sandpaper
- paint tray with a roller
- white paint
- primer (depending on how you like the finish product to look – read more below)
Here’s a tip: if you like to have the wood grain showing, don’t prime the furniture. On the other hand, if you want to go with a more traditional look, you can apply a primer (low stain blocking). Let that dry completely and start painting.
Once you gathered all the tools and materials needed, you’re ready to start prepping the wood furniture.
2 Add More Water For More of An Effect on Your Whitewash Wood Furniture
To get the whitewash effect, you’ll need to mix water with your white paint. We recommend getting latex-based paint, so mix that accordingly. Here’s what you need: two-parts paint and one-part water. You can play with the quantities but we find that works best.
Important: Test this on an old piece of wood and see if you like the result. You can add more paint or water to your liking as mentioned above.
3. Start Painting Your Furniture
Once you get the paint to your liking, use the roller, preferably a small to medium size dense roller, depending on your furniture size. You’ll need to wipe the paint before it dries so keep that in mind when working with large wood furniture pieces as per the next step below. Don’t forget to paint an an open air area if possible. Also, use a large tarp in case. You wouldn’t want to whitewash your flooring!
4. Gently Remove Paint
After your painting is complete, you need to wipe it down with a sponge to get the whitewash paint effect. If you were thinking about how whitewash wood furniture is painted, well, this steps explains the “secret”. When removing the paint, make sure you go against the grain of the wood. Also, be aware of the pressure you are putting on the sponge. You wouldn’t want to have large areas where more paint is shown so keep constant pressure on the sponge while removing the paint.
You can release the process above a few times. That is, you can remove the white paint and if you don’t like the result, you can repaint again. Remove the paint until the desired whitewash effect is achieved. Don’t worry too much if you haven’t got it perfect the first time. You can release this step as often as you like until you’re happy with the result.
5. Let The Furniture Dry and Evaluate
You’ll need to wait a full day or so to review how the paint has dried up. If you’re happy with the finished product, you’re almost done. If not, you can add another coat of paint and then remove some of it as explained above. Once you get to your liking of the whitewash wood furniture, you’re ready for one last step. Just make sure that the paint is completely dried. Some paints take more time than others to dry up. Last thoughts, if you have thicker layers of paint in some areas, just sand these down and repaint again. It’s not a big deal, remember there are no real mistakes here as every pieces of whitewash furniture is unique.
6. Add a Protective Clear Gloss
Once you achieved the whitewash colour you wanted you’re ready for add a protective clear coat to your newly whitewashed furniture. When the paint if fully dry, we suggest adding a coat of clear protective gloss to your newly painted whitewash wood furniture. Adding this will protect your furniture piece from scratches, chips and stains. There are a variety of water-based clear gloss products on the market so pick what you like and what you have budgeted for. Applying a clear coast can be tricky and most times you’ll need to do a few coats until you achieved the desired look and finish. Just take your time and you should be able to complete this in a few hours.
7. Enjoy Your New Whitewash Wood Furniture
Congratulations. Now you have a newly painted furniture piece in your house that didn’t cost a lot and that was easy to do by yourself. By following the steps above, you can achieve this over a weekend. Such DIY projects are simple and don’t take too much time but can add a lot of value to your home decor.
Tips: we suggest looking on your FB marketplace for cheap pieces of solid wood that you can turn into a unique furniture. Whitewashing painted furniture is not that difficult as explained above. Besides, who doesn’t like furniture pieces that add character to any home decor at a fraction of the cost compared to the big box retailers? We sure do! So go ahead and get creative. Worst case scenario, you pick up a free dresser or coffee table and start a new learning process.
How about you? Have you tried to paint this before? Please share with us any other tips that you may have so that our readers can benefit also.