Furniture

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Real whitewash was used for houses, including sod houses and stone houses, but is not for furniture. It flakes off easily. But you can get the look you want a couple of ways. Minwax and others make white or off white stains. A stain works best right on wood and a clear film finish should be on top. You can also use paint, applied and then mostly wiped off, over bare or even painted wood. I prefer oil paint for this and, again, use a clear film finish over the top to keep the white from rubbing off.

You can have color and an aged look pretty easily also. Apply paint, a latex acrylic is fine, and then wipe on a bit of Minwax Special Walnut stain where the furniture would get dirty with age over time. Of course, you can distress a bit before or after this if you wish also. Finally, apply a flat clear film finish.

The really neat thing about this process is that you can do the painting and film finishing part with spray cans so it works great on chairs and similar hard-to-paint objects. You end up with a surface that looks somewhat like aged milk paint and milk paint is what our ancestors would have used for painted furniture.

Henry in MI