How do you distress glass?

My roommate and I have been having a lot of fun with antique furniture lately. Today we picked up a really kitsch coffee table (fleur de lis, acorn accents, palm tree leaves?) and the top is glass. We know that is it going to accumulate finger prints and look dirty, so I suggested that we distress it like a distressed mirror.

1) http://www.ogtstore.com/media/catalog/product/cach...

2)http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/produc...

How do I achieve this look without it actually being a mirror?

Comments

  • Pretty hard to distress glass by beating it up like you can with wood. "Distressed glass" is usually "broken" glass, though you could scuff it a bit with sandpaper, on the bottom side would be best. There's a spray paint you can buy which is supposed to be very mirror like. Maybe artistic use of that and some dark colour of spray paint would give a distressed mirror look. You don't say whether you need to see the tabletop through the glass or not. If not, maybe substituting a textured glass would help stop the fingerprints from showing, and give the table even more, um, character. Stained glass supply places have more kinds of glass than you can imagine, and many regular glass shops have textured clear glass. It isn't necessarily all that expensive, either.

  • It's been done on Decorating Cents. Go to ghtv.com. Search for "antiquing mirrors". It involves using paint strippers.

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