This is a great technique to use when you’re using a single color on a piece of furniture and want to expose the original wood layer. Simply follow these steps.

All Country Chic Paint products used in this tutorial are available at www.countrychicpaint.com.

Step 1: First Coat

Apply one coat of paint to your piece; let it dry completely. If you're painting a piece made of raw or primed wood or MDF, then it’ll likely be ready for its second coat within an hour.

If you are painting a previously painted surface, then it's better to give the paint a good chance to cure. For laminated wood or a previous oil-paint layer, we recommend a light sanding before the first paint coat, and curing for at least 24 hours before applying your second coat.

Step 2: Second Coat

If needed, apply a second coat in the same color to get the desired amount of coverage. Wait about 1-2 hours until the paint is dry to the touch.

Step 3: Distressing

Once your final paint coat is dry, you can start distressing it with fine-grit sandpaper. You can start with 180 grit sandpaper to see how you like the look, but feel free to experiment with other grits. (The higher the number, the finer the sandpaper.) You just don’t want to use sandpaper that’s too coarse as it’ll leave visible marks on the un-distressed parts of your piece!

*Instead of plain sandpaper, we’d suggest you’d try sanding sponges or a sanding block. These will be a lot easier to work with than plain sandpaper. They’ll also be less likely to leave visible marks on your surface.

Make sure to apply only a little pressure at first, because you don't want to take off more of the paint layer than you intend. You can always apply more pressure if you’d like.

Other tools & tips

Instead of using sandpaper, you can also play around with a palm sander, and even a paint scraper.