Painting furniture can instantly change its dull, old look. Be it a small stool or a fancy dressing table, a perfect paint job is enough to give it a new look. Well, let me tell you that furniture painting techniques slightly differ than that in case of walls. Here are some useful painting furniture tips to help you spice up the furniture and have great looking interiors.
How to Paint Furniture?
Prepare the Surface
Whether your furniture is new or old, you need to prepare it before you start painting wood furniture. Firstly it must be clean, smooth and dry. Start by making its surface smooth by sanding it using a medium coarse steel wool or No. 1 sandpaper. Follow by sanding with No. 00 sandpaper. Make sure that you sand each surface, including the top, legs, drawers, borders, etc. Remove the drawers and work on them. Once you finish sanding, clean off the dust formed with a rough cloth.
Choosing the Primer
Make sure you pick the primer that matches the type of paint you have chosen. Like for latex paint, you can have latex primer. For oil-based paint go for oil-based primer. Latex or an oil-based paint will give a perfect semi-gloss or satin finish to the furniture. While latex doesn't have a strong odor, the oil based primer does have one and hence needs good ventilation. But the oil-based primers are known to offer superior adhesion and stain blocking.
Priming the Surface
The furniture is ready to get a coat of the primer. This is a process of forming the perfect base for the paint. Let me tell you that before you proceed painting furniture with primer, take all the pieces in a well ventilated area. Now apply primer using a spray or brush on the furniture properly. Spraying the primer will give you a more smooth and plain surface than what brushing on will give. Apply primer such that it covers each corner of the furniture. Wait for about 4 hours and give a second coat to the furniture. Once the furniture surface is primed, wait for some hours till it is completely dry to start with the main task of painting furniture.
Choosing the Paint Colors
That's the fun part of the whole exercise of painting furniture. Look around. What are the colors in the room. Check out the wall colors, furnishings and any other colors that are highlighting the room. You can choose matching paint colors accordingly. You can also choose to have contrast shades. For instance, you can have green colored furniture in a room painted in yellow color. You can have red furniture in a white room. You can also choose to have black furniture, yes painting furniture in black color in a white room is a great idea to create a dramatic effect. Believe me, that looks amazing. One of the painting furniture ideas is to have dual colored furniture. Like having a contrast shade to color the borders and legs or other detailing that will give a designer look to the piece. Let's move on to know how to paint furniture.
Painting Furniture
You can opt to spray paint furniture if you don't want to use those brushes. Make sure you shake the paint spray well and spray it in a sweeping motion. When you are spraying a light color over darker color, add some extra coats. While you use the brushes, make sure you have a neat brush that won't leave hair marks on the furniture. Start painting at the top and work downwards. Once this is done, you can add designs to the furniture using thin brushes, if desired. The smoothing paint drips as you work, so make sure you cover the floors with plastic sheets. Once the paint is dried the last step of painting furniture needs to be followed. Take a polyurethane finish and paint all the top surfaces of furniture with this. Wait for a day and give one more coat of polyurethane to give a glossy finish.
Painting furniture is definitely a great idea to give a fresh look to these pieces while you are remodeling your home. Home furniture is amongst the important home decor items and hence need to be taken care of thoroughly and kept up-to-date. So pick the colors according to the look you want and start working.
