Whitewashing furniture is an easy way to add a unique and subtle look to your furniture. Rather than color taking over your painted furniture, it is more of the technique that takes over your furniture and is catching to the eye.

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How to whitewash antique wood furniture
Jolie Palace White with Folk Art Farmhouse Ochre

Supplies to Whitewashing Wood Furniture

  1. Jolie Palace White
  2. Folk Art Milk Paint (I used Farmhouse Ochre)
  3. Water
  4. Your favorite paint brush (this is mine!)
  5. Shop towels
  6. Paint Stripper (I Used Blue Bear Soy Gel! It is SAFE to use indoors! Natural and Biodegradable! My paint teacher Mrs. Stephanie Jones recommends this!)
  7. Mineral Spirits

Steps to Whitewashing Wood Furniture

To begin, make sure your surface is clean. Lightly wipe surface with a damp shop towel to remove any dust or dirt build up. If your wooden furniture project has a layer of polyurethane, you will need to remove that layer. (The wash needs to be able to seep into the wood.)

Add a thick layer of paint stripper on top of wood furniture project. Spread out paint stripper evenly on project. When the wooden furniture starts to look “bubbly”, you are ready to remove the paint stripper with a putty knife.

Removing paint stripper

Once you have removed the the paint stripper, clean your table with mineral spirts. This will help remove any of the paint stripper residue. Mineral Spirits will help to break down left over paint stripper. When the surface feels nice and clean you are ready to white wash!

Lightly dip your paintbrush into the pot of paint. After you have a small amount of paint on your brush, dip brush into a small bowl of water. You just want the tips of the brush to get wet. (Try not to use too much water!) Using the lightly wet brush tips begin with even strokes, to lightly going back and forth on table surface. Making sure the white wash is seeping into the wood grain of the tables surface. As you go wipe away any excess white wash. You want the wash to seep into the wood. It should feel somewhat dry as you wipe away the excess paint with a shop towel.

How to white wash wood furniture
Wipe away excess with shop towel

After you have wiped away the excess paint you are now ready to repeat the same process with Folk Art Farmhouse Ochre. You will see both colors blending together nicely. 🙂

How to whitewash wood furniture tabletop
Project should look similar to this at this point.

I love seeing these colors blend together! At this point you will need to seal your project. I used General Finishes High Performance Top Coat (waterbased) This will not yellow over time.

General Finishes waterbased top coat
Add a topcoat

Add 2-3 coats of water based topcoat to your painted table top. This will make a durable finish!

After you have sealed your project you can continue to white wash the rest of your tabletop or you can paint the base in sold white. I painted the base of this table in a solid finish of Jolies Palace White. 🙂

You can do this! If you get stuck, message me! I am here to help you. 🙂 While you are there give my page a “Like”. 🙂

Your finished project should look similar to this! 🙂

Completed Table

If you would like to know more on how to paint furniture white CLICK HERE!

lets paint furniture

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