What Can You Put on White Painted Furniture to Make It Look Antique?

Vintage Hardware

• The most rapid -- and often least expensive -- change you can make to furniture is replacing your current contemporary hardware. Because drawer pulls and other hardware make an immediate visual impact, swapping them out with authentic antique or look-alike additions will give your furniture a vastly different appearance. While actual antique hardware could prove costly, many companies offer replicas of these vintage hardware pieces, making a swap out affordable. Because white can go with an assortment of metallic tones, you can select silver tone or gold tone hardware without fear of color clash.

Age Spots

• Antique furniture, while often kept in relatively good shape, will have some signs of aging. To give your furniture these aged marks, use a fine-point permanent marker. Sparingly add some dots or lines to the piece, placing them where the furnishing would have most likely received some heavy use, such as the arms of your chair or the front of your dresser drawers. Take a less-is-more approach to adding these marks to ensure that you don’t inadvertently create a dresser that looks plagued with a rash. If you don't like the results of your spot additions, create a paste of two parts baking soda to one part water and rub it on the area with a soft cloth, buffing off your marker marks. Wipe the area again with a moist cloth to remove any reside this process leaves.

Worn Spots

• As furniture ages, it wears. Replicate this look of a long and loved life by adding some worn spots to your furniture. Using a 220-grit sandpaper, lightly sand around the edges of your piece, removing some of the white paint and making it look as if years of use have left it a bit worn around the edges. As with the addition of your marks, don’t go sanding crazy, but instead make a few abrasions, step back and admire to work, then make more if need be.

Antiquing Glaze

• Giving your furniture that slightly dirty, aged look that is so common of antique pieces doesn’t have to require detail painting. Instead, simply apply an antiquing glaze. These glazes, marketed under an assortment of brand names by a number of industry-leading paint providers, instantly give your piece the antique feel you are seeking without requiring the painstaking addition and blending of tan or brown paint. Because your furniture is already white, you don't have to paint the piece prior to applying the antiquing glaze. The light white tone will create a strong base upon which to place your glaze, unlike darker toned wood pieces that may not contrast as well with your glaze.