Mahogany turned black. Furniture painting & distressing.

My mom and dad spotted this beauty at the Salvation Army on half price day!! I was super excited when they showed up at our workshop with this desk. It has such great lines, gorgeous detail, and the quality of the craftsmanship is unlike most furniture built today. I knew it would be great painted black, so we got started on it right away.

It was in pretty poor condition so it took a ton of sanding, a little bit of wood fill, some glue, and a couple of finishing nails to tighten up a few spots. I typically prime most pieces of furniture that I paint. Since I was painting this black, and knew that I wanted to distress it after, I decided to skip primmer. The problem with primmer is that it comes in dark grey or white, and I didn’t want to see either of those colors in the distressed areas. I just wanted the deep rich color of the mahogany peeking through.

It took two coats of semi gloss black paint to get good coverage. After the paint was good and dry, a few days latter, I sanded the edges, corners of the drawer faces, and a little bit on the carved detail on the legs. Then I wiped it down with a little bit of Old English oil to really make the richness of the mahogany stand out against the black.