Refresh your home’s appeal with furniture paint
Furniture, bookcases, cabinets, and doors present opportunities to add or change colour throughout a home. Lori Harper, Woodcraft public relations manager and blogger, offers some advice about updating a kitchen: “Painting kitchen cabinets is a big job, but it can transform the look of your kitchen at a fraction of the cost of new cabinets. It may sound daunting, but breaking it down into bite-size steps can take away the fear factor.” To read her project blog, visit Woodworking Adventures on Woodcraft. com and search for “Kitchen Cabinet Conundrum.”
Paint & Colour Selection
Three easy-to-use and easy-to-mix paints are: • Black Dog Salvage Furniture Paint is a water-based, low-VOC, matte finish paint for indoor use that requires only cleanup before painting, except in the case of chips and scratches, and adheres to wood, metal, glass, ceramics, and plastic. • General Finishes Milk Paints are premixed water-based acrylic paints suitable for a variety of interior or exterior applications from furniture to crafts. • General Finishes Gel Stains are heavybodied gels formulated to flow evenly for consistent color control. Before you pick up a paint brush, consider which colours are best for the area you plan to refresh. Choices will need to complement wall colour and colours of other pieces or accents in a room. Two handy colour guides are the 36-page General Finishes Milk Paint Fan Deck and the Black Dog Salvage Furniture Paint Color Recipes (available for download as a free PDF on Woodcraft.com). For more than just a change of colour, consider creating decorative effects, such as distressing, antiquing, faux marble, or rag rolling. Choose General Finishes Pearl Effects to make it easier to create specialty finishes.
Repair
If furniture, cabinets and other surfaces need repair prior to painting, the Mohawk PermaFill Wood Touch-Up and Repair System is an easy answer. Just pop in a colour cartridge (six color families available), power on the battery-operated dispenser, aim, fill and level this durable repair. Briwax ChaiRX is perfect to fix loose parts in chairs. Drill a small hole, inject ChaiRX, and in 12 hours the thin unique formulation will penetrate the wood cells and permanently swell the joints and bond them together. Visit https://youtu.be/ iWMu6OKyOUE to watch a video that demonstrates these products.
Clean and Prep
Use Krud Kutter TSP Substitute to remove dirt, grease, smoke, mildew, food stains, crayon, wax, and more from surfaces to be painted so paint will adhere better. For sanding chores associated with painting, consider the Porter-Cable Restorer Handheld Drum Sander with attachments, which is designed to remove paint and finish from wood, brick and fibreglass, as well as remove rust and polish metal. The Porter-Cable 382 5" Random Orbital Sander and the Norton 5" Random Orbital Sander are other good choices. For sanding with hand power, the Preppin’ Weapon Sanding Block Kit and Norton 41⁄2" x 51⁄2" SoftTouch Sanding Sponges are handy helpers.
Application & Topcoat
If spraying is your preference, Homeright Finish Max Fine Finish and Super Finish Max HVLP Sprayers are easy to use on everything from furniture to fences with oil- and water-based products such as chalk-style paint, latex paint, milk paint, enamels, primers, polyurethanes, stains, and varnishes. Large and Small Spray Shelters make painting furniture easier. For painting by hand, Black Dog Salvage Furniture Paint Round Brushes, made from both natural and synthetic bristles, and Redtree Matey Synthetic Bristle Brushes work well. Give paint extra protection with Black Dog Salvage Guard Dog and Show Dog Topcoats and General Finishes Gel and High Performance Polyurethane Topcoats. (MCC)