Transform Your Space: Refresh Furniture with Paint

If your wooden furniture is a mix from various sources and you're looking to create a cohesive look, you have a wonderful opportunity to give your space a unique and personal design. Check out these tips and start your project!

For reviving old wooden furniture, stores offer a variety of opaque paints with glossy or matte finishes, transparent varnishes, or tinted varnishes to mask imperfections in the wood. The selection is vast and inspires the imagination, so head to your nearest store and explore.

Remember, if you choose a semi-transparent varnish, the final color of the piece will be influenced by its original hue. If you select an opaque color, the wood's texture will be hidden.

The process of painting and refreshing wooden furniture begins with surface preparation. Before painting, thoroughly clean the surface with a cloth dampened with turpentine and gently sand it with fine sandpaper. The sanding doesn’t need to be aggressive to remove paint—it’s mainly to dull the gloss and roughen the surface. If the furniture is painted with oil-based paint, you need to sand thoroughly to remove the old layer, or alternatively, use a paint remover.
For furniture coated with Formica or melamine, sand before use, or apply a special primer for painting on Formica, allowing the paint to adhere properly and prevent peeling. Once this layer dries, you can paint as usual.

Before painting, lay down large pieces of cardboard or plastic beneath and around the furniture to avoid major cleanup afterward.

Cover hinges, rails, lock openings, and handles to prevent them from getting stained or clogged with paint, using painter's tape or thick masking tape.

It’s best to remove drawers and doors and paint them separately.

You can use a brush or roller to paint your furniture. Choose the size according to the size of the furniture, with rollers being particularly recommended for large surfaces. Know that rollers come in various textures, affecting the final look of the paint.

It's also advisable to buy a very small brush (or even a thick paintbrush) for painting corners, recesses, and small details.

To paint, dip the brush or roller in the paint, remove, and shake lightly to remove excess paint. Begin at the top of the furniture and paint in long strokes downward or diagonally.

For renewing rusty metal furniture, you can buy paints designed to be applied directly onto rust. Besides preserving the metal, you can create special effects by choosing the desired finish: lightly textured, metallic hammered, or smooth and glossy.

For interesting combinations, use several shades of color on the same piece of furniture, or use glossy finish paint on some parts and matte finish paint on others, for example, a matte finish on the door and glossy on the handles.