White Farmhouse End Tables with Weathered Wood Tops

What goes together better than white farmhouse tables and weathered wood? Not much! We combined the two on this DIY white farmhouse table makeover!  

I wrote about the diy restoration hardware finish technique a few posts back, but I just love the look it gives to end table tops.

These Broyhill end tables were beat up and heavily scratched when we got our hands on them.

The old finish was just the typical everyday black finish you can find at almost any furniture store now. But the turned legs caught my attention from the very beginning.

Here’s how you can makeover your old furniture with a weathered wood table top. It’s amazing what some paint can do for a worn out piece of furniture!

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DIY White Farmhouse Table

To start out, we lightly sanded everything and wiped it all clean.

To make sure the paint stuck to the dresser, I cleaned the dirt, grime, wax and oil off of the dresser with Krud Kutter. Then I lightly sanded the whole dresser down with 220 grit sandpaper and removed any dust with a vacuum and a tack cloth.

Then we painted both pieces with Behr Ultra Pure White (straight from the Home Depot shelf) paint made into chalk paint with our homemade chalk paint recipe.

After the paint was dry, I heavily distressed the legs and base of each table with 220 grit sandpaper.

DIY Weathered Wood Paint

To create a weathered wood table top, I layered multiple colors of paint as well as some wood stain and whitewash. Basically different shades of brown, tan, black, grey and white.

Here’s the faux weathered wood paint technique I used.

I started with a base coat of English Tea Party from Valspar. I brushed it on, leaving some white streaks showing through, and then I let it dry.

Once that thin coat was dry, I layered Sahara Desert, Suede Gray and Black (all from Home Depot) using a dry brush technique.

How to Dry Brush Chalk Paint

Dry brush painting furniture is when you get a little bit of paint on the tip of your paint brush, and then wipe the paint brush against a paper towel. Your paint brush should have the smallest amount of paint on it.

Then brush it on in light long strokes, all going the same direction. I overlapped a lot and kept layering the three colors until I liked the “grain” the dry brushing created.

I let the paint dry completely and then stained the tops with Minwax’s Dark Walnut Wood Stain.  (Be careful to not get any stain on the white bottoms!)

I used a couple of lint free cloths to wipe it on and then wipe it off any excess stain.

A little bit of stain really goes a long way because it doesn’t have much to soak into.

Once again, I let the stain dry completely (at least 48 hours because the next product is water-based.)

At this point, you could seal the paint and be done. But they were a little bit too dark for me.

So I white washed the tops with a very watered down mixture of the white paint I used on the base of the tables.

I brushed on the watered down paint, and then wiped it off with a lint free cloth.

When the white wash was dry I gave each table top a few good coats of my favorite topcoat for paint, Varethane Polyurethane.

Not only does the water-based polyurethane protect the paint, but it made it easier to work with the glaze in the next step.

I wanted the tops to be just a bit more brown than they were at this point, so I finished the weathered wood table tops off with a coat of General Finishes Van Dyke Brown Glaze Effects.

The brown glaze was the perfect product to finish off the layered weathered wood effect!

To give the painted finish extra durability and make it easier to wipe down, I sprayed on 3 coats of my favorite top coat.

The difference with the extra layers of white wash and brown glaze really make a difference in the weathered wood paint effect! There is so much more dimension now!

I know I just mentioned a lot of different products and brands. It honestly sounds harder than it really was.

I used what I had on hand, and you can too! If you’re anything like me (with a lot of extra paint lying around) this is a great finish to use up all of that extra paint!

But the more layering you can add on, the better in this case!

See this same method looks with some different products, and on a different table, with The Shiplap Coffee Table with a Painted Weathered Wood Top

Happy Painting friends!

Please pin this image so you can refer back to this painted weathered wood tutorial!!

-Natalie