I'd use brown, flat spray paint for the base coat. I recommend spray paint because it goes on the most even, and dries faster. Use a good quality and put on at least 2 coats, drying between coats.

Once dry, rub a candle on the high spots, like on the handles, sides, etc. But only rub in certain spots, not the whole thing. Use the picture you showed as your guide as to where to put the wax. You want it in the places that would most likely show wear.

So get a good coating of the wax where you want it.

Next, I'd use Kilz primer, preferably spray. This works REALLY good for the next part. Just one coat ought to be sufficient. Let it dry, then take sand paper and rub on the high spots, where you put the wax. You can usually see it under the white paint.

Once you've distressed it as you like, get either some antiquing glaze, brown glaze, or even WATER BASE wood stain that you thin down. Paint the glaze or stain over the whole thing, let it dry to the touch, then rub off gently. This will give you the finishing touch. When it's looking like you want, give it a shot of clear spray paint to seal it up.

I've done lots and lots of pieces this way and they have held up till I repainted again. I think the 'secret' was going over the white with a thin glaze of antiquing.

When you are distressing, you must think about what you are starting with....the color of paint or stain because THAT color will be showing through when you are done. If you don't like the base coat and it's stain, you can paint over it and then do the top coat. If it's painted and you don't want that color to show through, you'll have to strip the piece first.

When I'm distressing, I don't prime. The reason is that often the primer makes the paint stick good enough that I can't get it off the way I want to achieve the look I'm after. Or you end up with white primer showing through that you don't want to see....

Then I paint the piece and allow it to dry for a day or so and go back and sand the edges and areas I want to distress.

When finished sanding, I rub gel stain over the piece and wipe off until I get the look I'm going for. Let that dry and then seal. If you don't seal it, it will wear off over time and you'll end up re-doing it.

The sheen of the paint really doesn't matter because you'll be doing a sealer. Buy the sealer in the sheen you want....

I do this all the time on small to large pieces...once you figure out YOUR technique you won't have a problem...

Thank you for the tips.

I am not sure exactly why things haven't turned out. After reading this, I think it may mostly because of my horrible colors. It is hard enough to visualize something painted, but antiqued is even more difficult.

The weather has been bad today. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get outside and try some stuff.

Thank you for the tips. It is great to know that there are so many ways to do it and have it look good.

Sweets, you mentioned sealer. Do all antiqued pieces need to be sealed?

You don't have to seal everything but if you're using a stain over top of paint to get that aged look, you should. Stain is made to soak into wood and it can't soak into the paint so sometimes it won't fully dry and other times it will rub off over time.

One day when I was researching on the internet, someone shared a link to this website. It's for milk paints BUT they show how different things can look with different colors of base coats and top coats. I use it to get a general idea sometimes when I want to try something different.

Here is a link that might be useful: General Finishes

I agree with sweets98, I recently finished a couple pieces of furniture for my living room. I wanted black distressed and couldn't find the pieces I wanted in the right price range. I used black milk paint, which is great because it drys quickly. Then sanded with sand paper or steel wool the edges of my tables and any spots I wanted distressed. I also used screwdrivers to make "holes or deeper spots" for another dimension in the distressed process. After sanding, I used minwax stain on just the areas that I sanded, BECAUSE I noticed on the first piece where I used the stain on the whole thing it didn't dry as well. So on that piece, I had to use mineral spirits to wipe down the the painted sections only and left the sanded areas alone. I did seal my pieces with wipe on polyurethane in a satin finish. Here's a couple of pictures, the smallest piece as been sealed, the others haven't at this point.

AND different wood will respond differently to stain. My knobs are really the color I wanted, but they are a different wood than the actual furniture.

I plan on doing a few more pieces similar to this, but probably try different techiniques. I was going to try the wax process, but had a friend who does wood-working not to because it would be hard to get all the wax off.... but still might try it.