Methods To Recreate The Look Of Rustic Restaurant Furniture

By Beryl Dalton


The word antiquing has some very negative connotations, as many people have been taken in by con artists and paid exorbitant sums for what they thought were antiques. The methods used by some of these con artists do have a more positive application. To spruce up an old family business or redo a boring kitchen, one can use antiquing methods to create rustic restaurant furniture.

Large chains such as Ruby Tuesday started the craze back in the 1980s, and the concept has spread to many other restaurants all over the world. Throughout these establishments one can see what appears to be antiques on the walls and hanging from the ceilings. However, if this were the case, none of these businesses would have taken off.

Glazing is one method which creates a distressed or antique look to any piece, and is a method commonly used in household kitchens. It is fairly simple to learn, and similar results can be achieved in a large variety of color schemes. As a rule, one will start with a light base coat and utilize a darker earth-tone glaze over that.

Often it will be necessary to cover the piece with a primer, being sure to do a light sanding over any glossy surfaces. Then do a full base coat, allowing the piece to dry for several hours, or overnight. At that point the paint and glaze mixture can be lightly brushed on, and then wiped off with a clean cloth to remove excess wet paint and glaze mixture till the desired effect is achieved.

This glaze is generally wiped off in a horizontal fashion, or along the wood grain on picture frames, utilizing the same basic stroke for each swipe. It is also nice to make a marbled effect when one does a ragging off with the cloth rather than the swipes used in antiquing. For each method, a little practice is recommended until the artist knows exactly what end result they prefer.

Prior to the paint and glaze, one can create actual distress by taking a hammer and creating chips in the wood. This can make even a brand new item look roughed up, and once the glazing is complete the piece really can appear to have been handed down. Try making the look complete by rusting any metal hardware that goes onto it.

The easy method to create rust is to simply spatter the hardware with a rust-colored metallic paint, such as one might find in a model car kit. For a more realistic look, the metal hardware can be buried and put outside for a period of time. Some restaurants are probably guilty of utilizing the rust colored paint technique.

Restaurants even have time-period tools recreated, then rusted, to provide much of the bric-a-brac that hangs from the walls. Those items which are kept in unreachable places are most likely the items which have had the quick-and-easy methods of distressing utilized. However, for any household, one can take old family photographs and create frames that appear to be from the time period.




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