How To Paint Furniture

If you are a regular reader of The Inspired Room, you know I am not skilled with painting furniture — but I attempt it anyways. Life is too short to live in fear. I love PAINTED furniture, just not the process of painting them. The reason for that is because I am not skilled. I do not take the time properly prepare a piece nor do I know how to make it look really good. I have grand visions in my head of how wonderful the pieces will turn out, but I really need to learn HOW to do it so I do not wreck things up first like I am inclined to do.

Case in point

This scary attempt at painting the interior of a cabinet with primer.

Complete and utter FAIL.

You could not recreate that disaster if you tried.

The paint simply peeled off like a sunburn.

My dining room is in various stages of having a top to bottom makeover, CLEARLY we are in early stages here, with plans to finish painting the armoire and the table (as well as the walls, add a new light fixture etc.).

You might remember my primer whim incident … I just randomly started painting things assuming I was awesome enough to wing it. It became clear with the table that I am not that awesome.

I had the wonderful idea of doing a white wash on the table so the grain would show through. I thought it would be easy peasy to achieve that look because I could picture it in my mind. “Paint it and it will happen.”

Well, it was pretty much a FAIL and looked awful. I had to wipe off as much paint as I could and I’ll have to try it again after I read some instructions first on how to properly prepare the surface.

I have a hand sander but it is awkward and challenging to use.

This bathroom cabinet turned out OK pretty much in spite of my lack of skills and my commitment to rule breaking, however I am not happy with my distressing with the brown goop and want to go back and work on it some more. I liked it for about 30 seconds but I just want to make it better.

This chair from last years’ Spring Procrastinator Party turned out cute enough, but honestly now I’m feeling like the finish is a little bit rough and crunchy. I wanted it to feel smooth to the touch. Ahhhh, whose furniture turns out crunchy? Mine.

Then there was this piece. It took some fancy paint in order to transform it, but I am too impatient to order that paint every time I want to paint something. And I don’t want ALL of my pieces to look the same. I don’t want a matchy matchy look.

Mandie’s work

Soooo, now that you know a few of my escapades in painting furniture, you are probably wondering when we are going to get to the “How To” portion of this post. For those of you who need help and inspiration like I do, I am going to introduce you to someone who knows how to paint furniture and can teach us all how.

Yesterday I got this nifty ebook from Altar’d Funky Chic Furniture and it has instructions and tips on everything from how to look for furniture to paint and what tools, supplies and techniques I need to get the job done like a professional. I’ve already learned a bunch of stuff I am going to use right away on the pieces I am working on.

I now know what I did to cause the crunchy paint! And I know what kind of sander I want to replace my very old difficult to handle one. And, I know how to work with more ornate pieces. This book really has a lot of great information and breaks it down into manageable bits of information for people like me.

Mandie from Altar’d Furniture has experience painting furniture professionally which means she knows what she is doing, and she also understands what I need to know.

If you’d like to a copy of this ebook to help you with your upcoming projects, you can find it right here! It is just $10.

So, what painting projects do you still have to work on the rest of the summer?

The Inspired Room is an affiliate of this ebook but I only talk about products I personally use and enjoy!
I’ve shared this post for Works for Me Wednesday (for me, WFMW should be called DOESN’T work for me “DWFMW”, since I have illustrated my painting fails and I had to find a book to help me, lol–so I guess THAT works for me.).