How To Paint Furniture Part 1: Prepping

Every wondered how to paint furniture? Jenn, from the Creative Team, is a master furniture painter and she’s doing a short series on How to Paint Furniture. Everything you need to know from start to finish and plenty of tips! Enjoy! -Linda

How to Paint Furniture: Preparing your Furniture 

how to paint furniture

Is the light and bright trend that has taken the DIY world by storm, just another trendy? I don’t think so! It’s actually pretty timeless.  It seems that everywhere you turn on Pinterest, there’s some beautiful new piece of furniture in white or some pastel shade, so today I wanted to share with you a few things everyone should know before you paint your furniture a light color.  Tips that will ensure that your piece looks beautiful and professional, and that all your hard work LASTS!

How to Paint Furniture White

how to paint furniture white

So let’s start with the dreaded:

1.  PREP {dun-dun-dun}

After a piece of furniture has been thoroughly scrubbed down, I am usually a HUGE proponent of sanding EVERYTHING, but painting furniture white (or a light color) is often times the exception to my rule. Some of you may have painted a piece of furniture, only to go back and find that your furniture looks like it has yellow chicken pox.  It’s happened to me and it’s infuriating!  It’s called tannin bleeding, which is the oils in the wood bleeding through the paint. Tannin bleeding is usually at its worst in knotholes in wood.

tannin bleeding

Oak and pine {which lots of affordable furniture is made out of} are usually the biggest culprits, and sunlight will expedite the process.  Pine is definitely THE WORST. If you know for a fact that your wood is oak or pine, I actually recommend very little to no sanding, especially if there’s still a fairly decent coat of polyurethane, because the poly will act as another barrier to the bleeding.  If you don’t know what type of wood you’re working with, find an inconspicuous spot, sand it, and then paint the spot.  Give it a day or two and see if you find yellow coming through.  If you do, you’ll know that you need to address the tannin bleeding issue with your piece {I’ll tell you how in the next steps}.

You can see on this piece {below} how light the sanding was.  Not down to the bare wood, just enough to get rid of some of the nicks and scratches.

painted furniture

2.  PRIMING

While I’m a huge proponent of sanding, I don’t always prime.  I usually distress my furniture, and in my experience, priming makes distressing a lot more difficult because you have more layers of paint to get through. So priming can make distressing hard to look natural. So…if you’re going to distress, but you’re facing the tannin bleeding issue, I recommend:

*Avoiding sanding off the original finish where at all possible.  I realize sometimes this is completely unavoidable, because some things are just in such bad shape.

*Use a paint like Milk or Chalk paint {or this homemade version}.  This way, your paint will sand off with minimal agitation to the actual wood so you get a beautifully distressed finished, without the yellow bleeding

*If there are any knotholes in your wood, it would probably be wise to put some primer over just the knotholes and then not distress those knothole parts.

*You can also paint the whole piece with a dark brown or black first, so that when you distress, the dark paint shows through and mimics the wood look, but you don’t end up with yellow spots all over the furniture down the road.

distressed furniture

This piece was not sanded or primed and I used the homemade chalk paint recipe.

If you are NOT distressing:

*PRIME, PRIME, PRIME!  I know priming is not fun–I hate it.  But it makes for such a better finished product if you’re looking for a clean, sleek finish.

*Prime with a stain-blocking primer like Zinsser or Kilz.  Make sure it’s water-based if your paint is water-based {latex paint is water-based}. If you’re not sanding, I also recommend buying the Zinsser or Kilz that indicates that sanding is not necessary.  You can find it on the label on the back of the can.  These primers will also cover and seal rust!

primer

*Paint + Primer in One paints are NOT the same as stain-blocking primer.  I learned that the hard way after hours of work on my board and batten and then walking into the living room one day to find that my walls had yellow spots EVERYWHERE (which you saw above in the picture with all of the yellow knotholes).

*If you get one coat of primer on and still see quite a bit of yellow coming through, give it another coat.  It’s not necessary to completely cover the yellow, because the primer is meant to seal off and block the stain, so once you’ve primed over the yellow stain, it is blocked and shouldn’t continue to bleed, but you need to make sure it’s covered enough that the original stain doesn’t show through the paint.  Make sense?

*Remember you’re priming, not painting, so the coat needs to be even and smooth, but the color underneath does not need to be completely covered.

how to prime furniture

Finally, you’re ready for painting.  rarely use spray paint.  While spray paint is SUPER convenient,  I find it to be very unpredictable as far as finish goes and have had to start over on too many pieces after the spray paint didn’t turn out like I wanted.  My favorite tool for painting furniture is one of these high density sponge rollers.

paint roller

They don’t leave brush strokes and are soft enough to form to, and get paint into, all of those little crevices that are hard to reach with a brush.  When painting, roll or brush on thin even coats.  I know it can be tempting to try to paint in one coat, but you’ll end up with an ugly mess.  Be patient, roll on a coat, let it dry for a few hours and then go back and paint another coat until you get the finish you want. Trying to do several coats when the paint hasn’t dried completely is like touching your brand new manicure before it’s dry.

And finally, always let the paint cure for at least a week before setting anything heavy on it or putting it in an area where it will be getting a lot of wear.

how to paint furniture white

diy painted furniture

Do you have any questions about How to Paint Furniture? If so, leave them in the comments! 

Happy painting!

Jenn

Jenn Menteer

Jenn Menteer

Jenn Menteer

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