Aging Your Woodworking Projects Gracefully, Part 1

A tale of two sitters. These two chairs were built at the same time and reside in the same house. Yet one is worn more than the other – why this happened is key to know when adding age to your project.

Adding wear and tear to a piece is like writing a convincing tale of fiction.

It’s your day off. So, you go into your shop to make a new piece of furniture. How do you want it to look when you’re done? Well, it’s a new piece. So, that’s how it should look – new. You gently sand out every blemish from the raw wood. You carefully apply the finish. You rub it down until it is so perfect it gleams. There it is. Not a flaw.

A growing number of woodworkers have a different impulse. When they complete a piece of furniture, they want it to look like it has been kicked around for a couple hundred years. They want their furniture to look worn and used. How did this…