Painting Weathered Wicker Furniture

This wicker furniture has several layers of paint, and it was starting to flake in areas. I tried repainting the furniture last year, but it wasn’t sticking very well. This year I decided to do a complete update!

First I used a pressure washer and went over all of the wicker a couple times. TIP: Don’t get the pressure washer too close to the wicker or it can fray if it is real wicker.

After it dried, I used a small wire brush and brushed all over the chairs, in all the nooks and crannies, and the metal legs/feet until the paint stopped chipping or flaking.

When I felt pretty confident that any remaining paint was still “stuck” I wiped down the furniture to clean it a final time.

For the first coat of paint, I used a spray paint bonding primer. This took a light dusting over the entire surface of the wicker.

I did a few test areas to try out a color combination, and landed on this formula for the final look.

1. A base coat of Rust-Oleum Smokey Beige

2. A top coat of Rust-Oleum Cambridge Stone

3. After the top coat dried slightly, I used a rag soaked with mineral spirits and removed the darker paint from the raised areas of the wicker. This left the dark color in the crevices, and the light color on the raised areas. It created a weathered look, which I was going for because if the paint started to chip off or wear over time I wanted it to be a little less obvious. Plus, I just like the look.

TIP: Don’t let the top coat cure too long; you want it to be dry to the touch. I let one area sit overnight and by the next day it had cured too much for the mineral spirits to take off the paint.

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The photo above shows the left side where I removed the top coat, and the right side that is full coverage of the Cambridge Stone. Not a huge difference, but it lightens the overall color in certain lighting. Especially when you’re looking at it up close.

The two paint color/wipe paint off method definitely took longer than spray painting it all one color, but it’s an easy way to achieve the weathered look. Wiping the paint off the raised areas took longer than actually spray painting everything!

Would I do this again? Probably. I’ll see how it holds up over time. If it’s too complicated to touch up then I might go back with one solid color next time.