How To Paint Wood Furniture – Complete Guide

For those who refurbish furniture for a living, it would be your routine to find beaten up and seasoned dressers and tables and then turn them into something new-like. This is a profession for many people and even some pursue it as a passion project. They track down salvageable items from abandoned warehouses and such and then do their magic.

When it comes to completed pieces, many rely on the online portals where sellers meet buyers and then ship the articles to them. When it works, it is one of the most hassle-free and seamless ways of conducting business and earning top-dollar for the work you have put in. But most of the time, people do not go online to shop for furniture. It is still one of the items that are personalized and need to check it out before purchasing one.

Before you are able to sell something online or on the site, you need to make it sellable first. In this article, we will go through some of the practical tips and procedures that will help you in painting wood furniture like a pro.

You will find little bits of information online here and there and there is no one comprehensive guide that will help you in getting all the answers you are looking for in order to paint wood furniture.

So, sit tight and make notes if you need to, because we will get into detail about each aspect of painting wooden furniture.

Preliminary Steps

Like all the serious work, there is a preparation phase before applying the ultimate skin on the furniture. It is a crucial step because it will determine what you will get at the end.

In the case of painting wood furniture, the prep work consists of the following steps:

Place the article that needs to be painted in your workshop and away from pets and kids.

Remove all the accessories from it to have an even surface to work on. This includes removing all the doorknobs, hinges, and other hardware items. It is necessary because you do not want stray splashes or straight strokes on the items. This will mar their original coat and make them untidy and smeared. If there are other doors and drawers attached to the item, you should remove them too. Having an even playing field will enhance your efficiency and help you finish the task with ease and convenience.

Sand Your Heart Out

Sanding is one of the most important prep steps on your way to painting furniture. There are some blog posts as well as some of the instructors online that propagate the idea of not sanding for some types of paints or not doing it at all.

As far as we have done the research, we have found that sanding is always necessary to get the best surface to paint on!

Put it this way, sanding will get you a medium that is receptive to paint which helps in gluing the paint with the surface. This is a serious boost to the long life of paint, when compared to a surface that is peeled, chipped, too smooth, or glossy.

Go for a power sander if you find a layer of varnish or other paint on the surface. 80 grit sandpaper is a great choice for almost all types of surfaces and materials. By this time, you have a clear idea about the benefits of sanding the surface.

The adhesion will be at its best if you go deep down to the natural wood. If you just can’t get there, try to keep up as much as possible. Sanding is important to turn a normal surface into a receptive one. It means the primer will not have a hard time sticking to a roughed-up surface. This ensures maximum adhesion and longevity of the paint on the wooden furniture.

As stated earlier, if you can’t get to the natural wood, it would suffice to rough up the surface a little bit. This will help you in applying the primer to the medium with ease.

Once, you have prepped the surface for the primer, get fine sandpaper, like 220 grit or something like that. This will smooth the roughed-up surface and make it somewhat even. If the piece you are working on does not have a top varnish coat or other paint, you can skip the 80-grit sandpaper part and start with the 220 grit right away.

In contrast to a strict sanding regimen, you can sometimes opt for a fine grit sand sponge, but there are limitations. For instance, if the wood is bare or in excellent condition, then you can skip the sanding part with sandpaper and go directly to the part where you apply primer.

Pro Tips: When working with laminate furniture, remember to steer clear of the sanding part. It is not real wood and sanding it may harm the surface for good. Also, veneer furniture is another tricky piece because it had only a thin layer of real wood on the surface with plywood or particle piece underneath. If you sand too forcefully, you may go through the real wood part and then end up destroying the piece. In the case of furniture like this, going for a fine grit sponge is the best way to rough up the surface without risking damage.

Repairs

When you are working with a piece of old furniture, there are always chances that you will get to fix some of the basic issues in it before you get to the painting part. So, if there are gouges, scratches, and holes in the furniture, now would be the best time to get rid of them by repairing them. Some people go for new hardware such as doorknobs and hinges. For this, you should make sure before closing the gouges and making new ones whether the new items align perfectly with the hardware.

On the practical advice front, you can easily mask or make the holes and marks disappear by using a stainable and a paintable wood filler. This will help you in getting rid of all the imperfections on the surface of your furniture. Then, after the wood filler is completely dried, you should sand the material smoothly by using a fine-grit sanding sponge or a power sander to make it even.

If you are planning on repairing the material or replacing the hardware after the work is done, you will end up blemishing the clean and newly-painted surface of your wooden furniture. So, your hard work would all end up for nothing.

Prep

As stated earlier, merely applying paint over the immediate surface of the wooden furniture does not cut it. There are specialized prep and other steps involved in the preparation of the wooden furniture before it is able to accept the paint. This way, the adhesion will be maximum that will also serve for the longevity of the paint.

The first step in every preparation of material, both for priming and painting that comes after it, you need to make sure there is no dust or dirt on the surface of your wooden furniture. Dirt and debris affect the level of adhesion that you can get with the paint. It also makes the surface uneven in the shape of bubbles and other particles that stick out from the even surface.

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