How to Paint a Coastal Saltwash Furniture Finish

by Jenni Ingram

7 Materials

$150

2 Hours

Easy

Here's how to paint this gorgeous saltwash finish. The weathered, textured effect goes great with farmhouse and beach house decor styles.

how to paint a dark gray saltwash, how to

Visit my blog for a complete list of supplies and paint products and colors I used .

My original plan was to create new plank tops, but I didn't have enough wood on hand. Then I remembered a little sample I got at the General Finishes Expo. It was a cute little can of Saltwash!!!

I mixed the Saltwash with paint until you get a cake-batter like consistency. I chose to use Seagull Gray as the paint to mix in. Then you start blobbing (it's very technical) it on the furniture with a brush, making stipples and texture as you go. Now listen, DON'T OVERTHINK THIS! This is not exact, this is just texture. Here's how the tables looked after adding the texture...

I used this gray Milk Paint as the next color for these tables. I painted one coat over the entire table, texture and all!

Let the Milk Paint dry, and then grab your sand paper. I used 80 grit to knock down the texture and distress at the same time. All of the spots on the table I didn't cover with texture came through faster so it looked nice and distressed. All of the gray showed through really nice with the texture.

Already, this is looking pretty neat, but I wanted to add one more layer giving it even more dimension so I grabbed my favorite black glaze (listed in my blog). Again, DO NOT OVERTHINK this step, just put some glaze on there and start wiping it back with a rag (paper towel, cotton t-shirt, or cheesecloth will all do the trick). More photos and tips for this step are on my blog!