DIY Painting experts!! How do I "lime" a piece of wooden furniture?! (ie, shabby chic white?)

[Lissya]

I have a cabinet that's wood with a bit of wax on it, I think.

I want it to be white maybe with a bit of the grain showing through but am tying myself in knots trying to find out exactly how to do it.

Do I use glaze? What kind of base or primer will I need? Do I wax over the top or varnish?

I don't want a "crackle glaze" effect, just something that looks a bit worn as the end result with a litle bit of the wood grain showing through.

Any ideas?
MTIA

[Lissya]

Bump...

[ib]

Hmmm...that doesn't sound like limed to me, just painted with something liked a milk paint (best on bare wood though). Limed is when you use a liming wax so that the white only goes into the grain of the wood, iyswim.

You can then wax it on top. For a distressed look, you can put a bit of wax on the areas where you want it to be worn (so the paint won't stick properly) and then rub it down when dry (so the paint on the top layer comes off)

[Lissya]

Thanks ib!

So I put liming wax on say, the edges etc where it would be naturally worn, then apply paint on top, then rub of bits of paint with sandpaper?

What sort of paint do I use? (sorry to be a pain)

[GrendelsMum]

I do actually want to lime an oak table - could you tell me how to do that? Do I need to rub it down with wire wool first?

[Lissya]

Grendelsmum - having asked in B&Q today I have come away with the following info:

If you are decorating bare wood then you can get a white woodstain which you can leave bare, wax, or seal with (matt) varnish afterwards.

However white wall emulsion works the same way. You just water it down a bit until you get the coverage you want (testing on inconspicuous patch).

If your wood has varnish or some existing finish, you need to sand down first then apply primer. (I got a white water based wood primer). You can just have this on its own, or for more coverage, apply the white emulsion mix, then seal with varnish.

To get a "distressed" antique look, rub off bits of paint along the corners etc and patches in the middle.

Other than that you can buy actual liming paste from specialist places. (this has to be used only on bare wood and gives a look like this. I wanted more of a solid-white-but-shabby-chic look hence I am going for the emulsion/primer process.

HTH

[GrendelsMum]

Thanks very much for asking for me, Lissya!

I'm liming our dining table to match our sideboard, so I think I'll use the liming wax - I made sure that they left our dining table as bare wood.

It actually looks much easier than I thought, but I'll do a test patch first.

Hope yours goes well!

[Lissya]

Glad to be of help, Grendel!

Twas really pleased that the two young lads in B&Q knew what they were talking about and were very helpful on product selection as I don't think I'd have bought the right thing otherwise.

[ib]

Sorry I didn't answer, was away for a few days. Hope it turned out OK!