To "antique" or "distress"? This is the question?

I get quite a few people in the store each week with ideas that they have saved from Pinterest. And by the way I LOVE Pinerest and I do my fair share of scrolling through for ideas and inspiration! 
I think it's wonderful that we can go to a website and see what others have created and feel that we can do the same with a little help. 

If you see a piece of furniture that is similar to your piece at home and the color is something you would like to use in your home, most of the time that can easily be done. One statement that comes up often at Fresh is "I want my buffet, dresser, side table, etc. to be antiqued". 
And my reply is "do you mean you want it to be distressed or antiqued"? And then we continue on in a discussion about what the two words mean in terms of painting furniture. That's where the Pinterest picture comes in or we have several sample boards or pieces of furniture to show the difference to our customers.

A distressed piece is when you remove some of the paint by using a damp cloth (chalk based paints) or you can use a sanding block to distress. Our chalk based paints are softer and easier to distress so we use an old t-shirt dampened with water and gently remove in the areas that we want to have a distressed look. With the harder based paints we use a sanding block.

When "antiquing" a piece of furniture I use a glaze to give it an aged look or to tone the paint down. Glazing adds so much to a piece of furniture. It's one of my favorite furniture applications because it gives the depth that cannot be achieved with just paint.

Here is a picture of a buffet and a pedestal that was distressed with a damp cloth.

And these are some pieces that have been glazed. Which one do you like the best?

We have some exciting new workshops coming up in a few weeks so be sure and keep up with the latest news on Facebook or on our website.