Techniques

How to: Create the look of Mahogany Wood with Chalk Paint™ Wax

In the last video with this table, I stained with paint the tabletop. You might notice it’s quite purple looking. But the aim of this now is to put wax on it and make it into a beautiful mahogany-look tabletop.

This is my Dark Wax, a bit of a battered tin but that’s fine. Here’s my brush, it’s my smaller Wax Brush, I find that really good I can handle it really well, and there’s the wax. Getting a nice load onto it there. Now I’m going to start waxing, quite generously, different directions, making certain that you get into the grain of the wood. This isn’t a really grainy piece of wood, there’s lots of history now I can see, the stain has brought out all of that I’ve got all sorts of little bits, it’s quite a nice bit of grain just there, but then there’s also lots of dents and bashes it’s got a history.

Normally, I wouldn’t put Dark Wax directly on to paint, but the paint is a stain at this stage and also the wax is acting like a stain as well. You’ll notice I’m quite generous with the wax, there’s a lot on there and I’m working at it all the time. You don’t want the wax to dry, so you can’t just leave it you’ve got to keep working into it. It’s fairly even but not completely even, and although I can continue with the brush, actually what’s easier for me to do now is use some cloth. So what I’m doing here is taking off the excess wax, rubbing it in, making certain it’s all even. I’m not aiming to polish it at this point.

[Finished waxing] So I did just one coat and actually to be frank I wasn’t that pleased with it. The wood didn’t have that much grain and it was looking quite good, but not quite right. So what I’ve done is give it a second coat of Dark Wax, and that is now making it really sing. You don’t know what the wood is but it just looks like it’s beautiful and antique, it’s got patina. So again, now just going over the second coat of wax to give it evenness. Taking any excess off. Ooh, that’s looking gorgeous!

So I finished the tabletop now, so the next bit is to paint the legs, I’m painting the legs with Louis Blue. Normally what I would do with the table is turn it upside down, but I didn’t do it for this one because what I was concerned about was getting the top. The top is the sort of star of the piece.

[Finishes painting] So everything’s finished now, I’ve painted the bottom part in Louis Blue and it’s all waxed. So now I’m going to give it a good polish and I do this the day after I painted, because you need to let the wax dry a little and you’ll find it much
easier to get that high shine if you leave in a day. I’ve got a beautiful, beautiful patina. I’m absolutely thrilled! It’s really, really gorgeous.

You will find that every piece of wood is quite different. So I’ve got some other pieces of wood here. This is just something new – completely new – and we just put Dark Wax on it. I didn’t do any stain on that at all.

This one here, this is Greek Blue and I’ve put Dark Wax but the Greek Blue was done quite lightly. And this one here is Graphite and then Dark Wax put on to it. And the Graphite is quite light. So it all depends on the wood: it depends on how much grain there is; it depends on the age. This is beautiful – great grain, but not much age to it, so it’s very sleek looking. This had much more age. Or you might have something which is an old piece and you get lots of grain to it and the age as well. So it all depends, and every single one is going to be very, very different.

In part two of this two-part tutorial, Annie Sloan applies Dark Chalk Paint™ Wax to darken pine to look like rich mahogany.

Your budget might not stretch to buying genuine mahogany furniture, but that doesn’t mean you can’t fake the look of deep, dark brown wood. With the right tools and a little know-how, you can transform your modern, mass-made pine furniture using Chalk Paint™ Wax to add depth and richness – creating a rich, dark brown wood colour just like mahogany!

Start by following Part 1 of this tutorial. Once you’ve created your stain with Chalk Paint™, it’s time to add depth and create that polished mahogany look with Dark Chalk Paint™ Wax.

Step by step guide to creating a mahogany wood finish with wax

  1. Use a small Chalk Paint™ Wax Brush to apply Dark Chalk Paint™ Wax generously over the surface of the wood.
  2. Move the brush in all directions, making certain that you get the wax into the grain of the wood as you go. Keep working into the wax while it’s still wet.
  3. Use a cloth to remove the excess wax.
  4. *Optional: Apply a second coat of wax if you feel you want the mahogany stain to be darker. Again, wiping off the excess with a cloth when done.
  5. *Optional: leave overnight and polish the wax with a cloth the next day to achieve a high shine.

It’s surprisingly easy to transform the look of your wood with wax. You don’t even have to use this technique on a whole piece of furniture, just a table top or the top of a chest of drawers can look fantastic when paired with Chalk Paint™ for a rustic farmhouse look. If mahogany or brown wood furniture isn’t to your taste, you can try using White Chalk Paint Wax™ to lighten your wood and create a limed oak look. Whatever your style, make sure you support local by shopping your waxes and tools with your local Annie Sloan Stockist.

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