First you start by taking the table firmly in your hands and saying, “Stupid table, you’ve got no future and you’re poorly designed.” If it still looks chipper, discuss the economy until you can get the varnish to peel. It shouldn’t take long.
In all seriousness, sometimes in theater we need a piece of furniture to look as if it was older. The process of taking a new thing and making it look old is called “distressing.” In the show that I did props on, the original show table broke and had to be replaced. Someone else picked up the new one, but I had to run over to the theater to distress the table.
I use a steel wool to dull the finish, a little paint for staining and honking big rasp to create dings and scratches. By honking big, I mean the about eighteen inches long and an inch wide.
On the way home, I’ve got all the tools in my bag and the rasp handle was poking out. It rested at my hip at almost the angle of a sword’s hilt. At one point, I passed this guy who tried to get me to stop and talk to him. Never works, but this time I got a story flash.
See, I always want to write stories with people in theater, but really need the fact that they are in theater to have an intrinsic role in the story. So, showing a props master at work on a show and the bag of tricks used and then getting to reuse those tools in very different ways later would be a lot of fun.
I mean, can’t you just imagine drawing the rasp like a short sword? And from the time or two that I’ve accidentally caught myself with one, those suckers hurt.
“If the table still looks chipper, show it a chipper. A wood chipper. Note the table’s fresh distress.”
Ahahaha!
Distressing items is so much fun! I once had to distress a dress for a show–it was a quasi-modern retelling of Taming of the Shrew (original dialogue, mind) and Kate had fallen off Petruchio’s motorcycle. So I had to take this expensive-looking Renaissance dress and rip it, put it on and go roll around in the dirt, work shoe polish into it, and all that good stuff. Once I got over the “oh holy god I’m ruining this wonderful dress” hangup, it was fun!
It reminds me how much fun it was to knock down a tower of blocks when I was a kid.
People actually decorate real houses with new furniture that has been distressed to make it look old. That’s even weirder. Back when I was in the custom furniture business we used to use a large chain like the kind used to lock up bikes in NYC. We would take a brand new piece of furniture we had just finished and beat the hell out of it with the chain.
Now that is a good trick. I’ll have to give it a try next time.
Some fun ways of distressing furniture:
Drop things on it. Wooden blocks, machine parts, heavy chains, etc. You want something that will leave small nicks in the wood.
Scratches may be added by dragging things along visible legs or tops. Keys, chains, and other metal objects work best. Rocks are also good.
Tea and coffee are ideal for making cup-rings on light wood. They also work for larger stains, as do grape or raspberry jelly; grape, cranberry, and other juices; and spices such as turmeric and cayenne.
Dinner tables may be distressed by setting a hot pan on them for a few seconds.
You can also borrow someone’s puppy to teeth on the lower legs of chairs and tables.
You know, I really wanted it to look like something had chewed on it and I couldn’t figure out how. Puppies… of course.