Furniture Painting 101: Step One

 Hey there!  I hope you guys are doing well.  It's been a long time and life has been crazy.  Since I'm no longer selling painted furniture or furniture paint anymore, I thought I would share some tips and tricks for painting and refinishing furniture.

I know there are many paint brands out there that call themselves "no prep" paint.  Unfortunately, that just is not true.  All furniture no matter how big or small needs to have some prep work done in order to have a beautiful finish.

So first things first, you need to give your furniture a good cleaning.  Using a degreaser product is the best place to start.  Now you may be thinking why do I need a degreaser for a bedroom dresser?  The answer to that is FURNITURE POLISH!  Furniture polish is full of oils and waxes that can leave a greasy build up on your furniture pieces.  That greasy build up will act as a resist and keep the paint from sticking to your piece.

You can use products like TSP- tri-sodium phosphate, Krud Kutter, or Simple Green.  

I also like to use a green scour pad.  It really gets in there to removed the build up and it also does a little pre-sanding.

Make sure you rinse your piece well after cleaning and allow it to dry thoroughly. 

Once your piece is completely dry, you can give your piece a light sanding to give it a little tooth for the paint to adhere to.  You can do this with a 220 grit sanding sponge.  If the old finish is really shiny and smooth, you will want to bust out the power sander and give that finish a good scuffed finish.  The boutique furniture paints will not stick to a shiny surface without scuffing or using primer.

When you are finished scuffing/sanding, wipe the dust off or use an air compressor to blow the dust off and you are almost ready to paint.

Check back for the next steps in the furniture painting process!

Happy Painting!

Tricia