How To Distress Outdated Wood Furniture Without Sanding

If you find yourself in possession of outdated-looking wooden furniture, whether you're one of the nearly 20% of Americans who goes thrifting each year or you inherit antiques from your grandparents, it could be hard to see a path forward. The piece may not fit your modern aesthetic, and antique furniture has historically been a tough financial investment, in part due to rising rent prices netting less floor space on average for bulky decor. However, repurposing your existing furniture is more sustainable and cost-effective than buying a new wardrobe or coffee table. 

One look that never seems to go out of style is using DIY distressed wood paint as shorthand for furniture being well-loved rather than outdated. You can try a neat trick using nothing more than a wooden block and paint to capture that look without risking damage via sandpaper.

The process of distressing wooden furniture typically involves painting it whatever color fits your current space and then sanding it to emphasize natural wood in areas where people would have handled that piece over the years — drawer knobs, corners, and the like. But FAFF Designs on Facebook instead recommends dipping one face of a wooden block in the color of your choice and then rubbing that over the bare surface of your outdated furniture. Doing so should ensure that more paint appears within naturally sunken bits of wood grain, with the scraped effect adding to that aged look that you can set with wax. There can be a lot of power in adding antique furniture to your home decor, and this distressed design hack opens the door to other opportunities, too.

When your life's journey has led you to upcycling antique furniture with a wooden block, there's nothing to say you have to stop at just creating a distressed paint job. Woodcut printing is one of humanity's oldest techniques for mass-producing art, so you can certainly add a whole new dimension to your outdated piece by making it more of an artistic statement. Carving negative space into your wooden block can have any number of effects, but a more subtle idea might be using a creative print based on fall leaves or vines to add a naturalistic flair to the side of your wardrobe. 

Using multiple colors could also change a basic distressed look into something more flashy, whether that be a rainbow of colors running down the surface or something like primary and accent colors on the body and doors of your furniture, respectively.

If the antique wooden furniture you've been handed needs additional restoring and refinishing, there are plenty more flourishes you can add without compromising the integrity of the piece. For example, you can refurbish the current wood with similar material from a sentimental source — perhaps a piece of floorboard from an old family home, or a sailing boat plank. You can also flex your outside DIY talents with furniture accents, like custom metal hinges or knobs. You're sure to love your distressed, outdated piece of wooden furniture by the end of whatever project you decide to try, because what you do with it will be all yours.