{How to Glaze Furniture} – Take 2

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One of my most popular posts of all time on this little blog is the one i did on glazing furniture so long ago!  That post can be found here.

While i still use that technique sometimes with the stain or paint mixed with a glazing medium, it is no longer my “go to” technique for glazing furniture.

About a year ago i discovered a new glaze by Sherwin Williams and i have mostly been using this product ever since.  Its so easy to work with and you can get a rich deep glazed look with it or go very light, just depending on what look you are going for.

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1st – for those that dont know exactly what a glaze does.  Its basically a stain that you wipe on and then wipe off giving your furniture an aged, worn, antiqued look.  Its adds so much depth to a piece of furniture that you just cant get with paint/distressing alone.  The glaze seeps into all the cracks, imperfections and lines of the furniture bringing out all the details.  You can leave more glaze on the furniture to give it a “dirty” look, or you can take a lot of it off just leaving it in the cracks to bring out the details.

Here is an example of what glaze can do.  One half is glazed, the other not.  See!  Its amazing all the details that the glaze picks up on!  All those would just blend into the paint if it wasnt for the glaze.  Notice also how much the glaze changes the paint color – so you must plan for that.

how to glaze furniture - Sweet Pickins Furniture

As for my new favorite glaze, i have been using Sherwin Williams Sher-Wood glaze in Van Dyke Brown (you can also get this in white or a natural that you can tint any color).  Its a very dark, rich brown.  The glaze itself is pretty thin, almost as thin as water.  You do need to stir it every time you go to use it as all the good stuff sinks to the bottom.

This glaze is pretty pricey @ about $55 gallon, and i dont believe they sell it in quarts.  But, this will last you forever.  I use it almost every day and even spilled about half of my last gallon and it still lasted me a year.

how to glaze furniture - Sweet Pickins Furniture

The supplies that i get out when starting a glazing project are lots of paper towels, glaze of course, a brush or cheap sponge brush and mineral spirits.

         – sometimes if i want the glaze to be lighter, i will pour some glaze into a plastic cup mixed with mineral spirits, about a 1:4 ratio

         – i used to use old rags or t-shirts to wipe the glaze off, but i got sick of washing so many!  So now i just use paper towels – either one will work the same.  I normally have 3 piles of paper towels going on, one pile for the 1st wipe down, one for the 2nd and so on.

how to glaze furniture - Sweet Pickins Furniture

To start off, i first distress my furniture.  This will let the glaze cover the distressed spots and either darken up the natural wood showing through, or let the glaze sit in the distressed “scratches” picking up on the distressing even more.

After all the distressing is done, i start the glazing.  Normally if the furniture is larger like my entry dresser that i am working on for here, i glaze a section @ a time.  Depending on the temps, the glaze may start drying quicker than you want so thats why its best to work in sections.

Just take your brush and rub the glaze over all the paint, be sure to get it into all the cracks.

how to glaze furniture - Sweet Pickins Furniture

Then take a bunch of paper towels and wipe off the majority of the glaze, it will look like this after the 1st wipe down…

how to glaze furniture - Sweet Pickins Furniture

At this point you have 2 options…

          – If i wanted a heavy glazed look, i could just take a dry paper towel and wipe it until all the streaks were blended, sometimes swapping out for a new dry paper towel.  Just be sure and get all those streaks wiped away and make the glaze look blended, it will look better when its done, theres nothing worse than seeing streaky glaze!

          – If you want a lighter glazed look (like i did on this dresser), take a clean paper towel dampened with mineral spirits and wipe it down, then take another clean dry paper towel and give it another wipe down.  Usually i repeat this process once or twice.

This pic below shows how the glaze looks after wiping with mineral spirits a couple times…you can see that you cant see any glaze streaks and the glaze has just settled into the details.   The mineral spirits took off the majority of the glaze just slightly changing the paint color.

how to glaze furniture - Sweet Pickins Furniture

Here is a pic that shows half glazed, half not…you can see how the glaze changes the paint color slightly so make sure you do a test patch to make sure you like it!

how to glaze furniture - Sweet Pickins Furniture

Final pic of the dresser all glazed…

how to glaze furniture - Sweet Pickins Furniture

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– This glaze is oil based, it can go over latex paint and can be clear coated with water based poly.  Sherwin Williams paint pros told me this method is used all the time and is perfectly fine :)

– The glaze itself does not add any protection to your furniture, so if you want a protective coat you still must seal it with poly or wax it

– If your furniture has a lot of details/cracks, its important to wait for it to dry all the way before adding any type of protective coat, if you dont you could smear the glaze if your brushing it or of your spraying on your clear coat, the air from your paint gun could make the wet glaze splatter (ive done this and its so frustrating!!!)

– Make sure your paint is good and dry before using any type of glaze, otherwise with all the rubbing it may lift your paint

– Use mineral spirits to clean up your brushes and hands

– Make sure and work in small sections so the glaze doesnt start to dry on you, if it does start to dry to much you can dampen it with mineral spirits or brush more glaze over the dried on glaze

– Know that this glaze will most likely change your paint color, normally with reds it will deepen the color, blues and greens it will give it more of a greenish hue, yellows will give it more of a mustard color and whites will give it a dirty, beige/tan/mocha look – just make sure and do a test patch.  But the more you wipe with mineral spirits, the more the original color will show through.

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And im trying out a new glazing technique this week, so i will be sure to let you all know how that turns out!!!

To see the original post on glazing go here