How to Distress An Ordinary Timber Door

We had such fun with this project which we used as a demo during our launch at The Yard in Queen Street, Kensington.

Although, we used Daisy as the final colour, there is nothing stopping you from using any colour within our amazing palette of colours to achieve a similar look.

To start with, we had an ordinary timber door. 

Step 1:

Next we applied Chocolate Cake strategically on both sides of the door, focusing on the corners and edges, where a door would likely pick up knocks and bumps, as ultimately we wanted to achieve as authentic a look as possible. Allow approximately 20 minutes before moving onto the next step.

(Please also consider that when working with very knotty pine or mahogony or any red wood for that matter, it is advisable to seal the wood first by applying a coat of Granny B's Finishing Lacquer before you paint)

Step 2:

Before applying the first coat of Daisy, we rubbed hard candle wax over all the areas where we had applied Chocolate Cake. Any ordinary candle will do.

Once you are satisfied that there is wax where required, you can begin to paint the final colour.

Step 3:

We wanted an authentic shabby look so we only applied two coats of Daisy, a third coat would have resulted in full coverage and would have given the door a more modern look which we felt would not have worked as well with the distressing.

Step 4:

As our final step we lightly sanded with a low grit paper (around 80 grit), concentrating on the corners and edges. You will notice that when you try this yourself, not a lot of pressure is required to remove the paint as the wax will assist in the areas where it was applied. The reason why this works is because the paint sits on top of the wax and not the wood, if a little bit of the wood timber is exposed when applying this technique, it's not the end of the world as this is the look we're after. 

If you make any mistakes and want to correct them, simply paint over the area in question, allow to dry and start again. That's the great thing about our paint, it is very forgiving.