Painting furniture is probably on my top three things that I love to re-purpose because it's so easy! Pick out a great color and get some brushes...sand down that baby...and woohoo, you've got a statement peice. Did I ever tell you guys that my whole dining room...no joke except for my corner hutch...I thrifted or got at a yardsale and just re-did? SCORE. Majorly. My favorite thing is my table...although, I have yet to finish painting the legs & do touch-ups. Grr..any takers?I have painted so many pieces of furniture that in turn I have made a ton of mistakes. I've had tons of awesome gone bad....I've even gave up on a few and put them out in the trash. Yes, I sure have. And I watch people scope my peices out just like I do theirs. I know that this house is not our ideal house...but we have to work with what we have...until we buy a home. I hate the walls for one....I don't think paint will ever go evenly on these walls and I hate our layout...even though, everyone I talk to...LOVES it. I dunno either? Here's another look at my dining room...from awhile back. It's different now because I change things so often but all these peices are from Mrs. Schmidheiser Blog projects. What do y'all think?
I am far from being perfect and the same goes for my home and even painting furniture but I can give you some advice and tips...that I have learned along the way...if you'd like to stay and hear them:)
SANDING, say what?
Always, always, always sand your piece before you start painting. You may not think that it's necessary but it will completely change the way the paint looks and dries at your end result. A light sanding on anything will do a ton of good...and if you plan on doing lots of peices, I'd invest in an electric hand sander...you'll thank me later.
PRIMER, ya dig.
PRIMER. I don't use it everytime, I will admit but I do use it most of the time. I should probably find two like items, use a primer on one and not on the other. You'll see that if you do use the primer, your color will be more true. You can use an oil based primer with latex & oil based paints. Oil based primers smell but are pretty great for cleaning and stains. Latex is ok with stains but doesn't smell that bad...so you get the idea right?
CLEARANCE, booya!
Always check your clearance sections at your paint stores. I have scored so pretty awesome colors from Wally world in their mis-tented paint section. Also, be creative. I've bought two gallons of clearance paint only to mix them to find my ideal color. Think outside of the box!
BRUSHES, ROLLERS...galoreeeee.
I'm cheap. I hate buying brushes over and over...and quite honestly, I sometimes don't care for the texture that brushes give to certain peices of furniture so I buy the cheap-o, one time use brushes they sell for like $1.50 for 10. Yep, cheap-o. But they do the job and do it well ;) HOWEVER. This is only when I'm doing a flat paint on something or I know that I'm going to go Shabby Chic with the peice and distress it, etc. You do get what you pay for...and for statement or important peices, I would def...invest in good brushes or which ever ones you like. I also use the roller for bigger projects, it's a totally life saver. I used to sit and paint dressers with alittle paint brushes. What an idiot right? Yeah, invest in a roller people.
POLY want a cracker.
Polyurethane...if you want your peice to be easy to dust, clean or in my opinion, hold up to life. Oil based polyurethanes should be used for darker peices while water based should be used for lighter peices. Don't make the same mistake I did and used oil based on white furniture. Can you say ugly yellow? Yup.
Good things come to those who wait, thanks mama.
This one always frustrates me because I'm so excited to just get the peice finished that I don't have TIME to wait for it to try! I would recommend at least 6-8 hours of drying time between coats. If you can be more patient, say 24 hours more patient do so. But for people like me, I have found that 6-8 hours does the trick. You want to make sure all the work that you're putting into the peice is worth it and you certainly don't want to back track.
Shabby Chic.
Can you say layers? Do you have old paint in the garage that you think is horrid and never want to use...slap that on there and the first coat. Do you ever notice if you see a shabby chic peice somewhere..that it doesn't just have one color...it has layers...and LIFE into it. It looks like it's been in 10 different homes with 10 different stories. This is a quick and easy way to give your peice some detail, some shabby-ness..yes, I made that up...and just to give it some old into it's new life.
This is what husbands are for. Or burly neighbors. Or creepy old guys.
Have you ever wanted to paint say a dresser? Maybe a nightstand? Or a bookshelf? Hutch? TAKE THEM APART. It is much easier to work with smaller peices than to make yourself feel overwhelmed with one big peice. Plus, you get all the better details if you pay attention to each peice rather than one big one. Right? I know, I always am;) At least that is what I tell my husband.
Use what you have.
This is something I tell people all the time. When we first got our house, I hit Ashley furniture and Hobby Lobby all the time buying things for our house in an attempt to make it feel "homey." But you know what...I could have saved us a ton of money. You see, whenever you do a peice for your home....it's something that you should be proud of because you did it for YOUR home. And you'll be so glad you spent that $10 on the chair instead of $1,000 at Ashley ;)
That's all I got for now guys...I'm beat and have to get up to go to my big girl job tomorrow again! Woohoo for a 3 day weekend! Hubby and I are heading to Bismarck to spend some quality time together! And so I can hit TjMaxx, duh.
Love Always,
Mrs. Schmidheiser
