Many houses have old wooden furniture. Over time, its attractive appearance is lost. Can furniture be painted? This procedure returns her beauty and neat appearance. Therefore, you need to know how the painting is performed, as described in the article.
Materials and Tools
Before you learn how to paint furniture with your own hands, you should prepare everything you need for this. To prepare the surface of furniture for work, the presence of:
- putties;
- containers for paint, roller and brush;
- fine sandpaper;
- rubber spatula;
- grinding machine;
- glasses and gloves for protection;
- masking tape;
- paints.
All of these items will come in handy during processing. If you have everything you need, you can do the preparatory work.
Training
How to paint furniture? First you need to prepare the surface for this procedure, since this determines the quality of the paint. To do this:
- Inspect furniture to identify breakdowns and repair them. It is necessary to remove the doors, pull out the drawers, remove the accessories. Using a spatula, exfoliated particles of varnish and paint are removed.
- Then there is the processing of fine-grained sandpaper. It is not harmful to wood, does not form large scratches. A grinder will do.
- Then degreasing with vodka or alcohol is performed to prevent the film from appearing. The surface is primed and then large defects and scratches are repaired with putty. It is advisable to choose an acrylic primer, since with it it will turn out to close small cracks and scratches. Soil is applied with a brush. The primer should dry well. Putty is applied with a rubber trowel, qualitatively leveling the surface.
- After the putty has dried, it is necessary to sand the areas with emery paper, worn on a block, or with a grinder. Processing must be performed until the surface becomes smooth and even.
- It is necessary to remove dust and prime the surface.
The primer for the last coat should be as similar in color as possible to the future color. This will save paint and get a uniform color.
How to choose a paint?
Updating old interior elements is not an easy task, but it is a very interesting job. How to paint furniture to make it beautiful? You need to choose high-quality paint in a suitable color. The painted design should fit perfectly into the interior of the room.
When choosing a paint, the following recommendations should be considered:
- The final color of the restoration should be matte or glossy. It is necessary to adjust the thing to the design of the room, it is easier to paint it with a covering tone, for example, white.
- To get the look of natural wood, as well as emphasize the texture, you can use transparent or translucent varnish, stain, impregnation, enamel. After cleaning the structure from the old coating, it will be clear which coating option is preferable to use.
- What paint to paint the furniture? It is necessary to apply the means intended for these purposes. Unsuitable varnish or paint will not allow you to get an excellent result.
- Wood surfaces are preferably treated with water-dispersed acrylics. Although wet, they can be washed off with water, but after careful drying they adhere perfectly to the surface.
Paint Features
The advantage of acrylic products is vapor permeability, since air is important for wood. Such compounds remarkably protect trees from mold and pests. They have no smell - you can perform restoration in the room.
Alkyd varnishes and paints remain in demand. They have similar properties with acrylic and almost the same cost. But these funds are created with organic solvents and with drying toxic components are released. The advantage of alkyd paints is the ability to install furniture in wet rooms.
Which is better not to choose?
Do not use oil or nitro paints, as they are not suitable for wood. And polyurethane or polyvinyl chloride are professional and it is advisable not to choose them for home painting. When buying paint, you need to choose a suitable primer for it. Manufacturers produce under the respective brands.
Procedure
How to paint furniture at home? This work is carried out easily and simply, the main thing is to do it accurately and without haste. Painting is carried out in several layers, so staining is carried out in stages:
- First, paint is poured into the tray, brushes and a roller are prepared. It is better to proceed from the sides using a small brush. Since drying is fast, processing must be carried out intensively. After applying paint to the end sections and corners, you can apply the coloring agent to the surface using a roller.
- It is also necessary to paint the surface quickly so that the work is neat. After the first layer, the paint is dried for 20 minutes, and for this period the can of paint is covered with a lid, and the roller is wrapped in polyethylene.
- It is necessary to examine the dried surface. If there are roughness and burrs, they are removed with soft sandpaper. The second layer is covered in the same order as the first. After drying, you need to decide if 3 layers are required or if the resulting color is enough.
- If a highly saturated color is obtained, 3 layers are allowed. After drying, it can be varnished for a glossy shine.
- When the varnish dries, it is necessary to put the old fittings in place or replace them with a new one.
- At the end, set the boxes in their place and hang the doors.

This is the whole sequence of work. If you adhere to these rules, you will get an excellent result.
Work with chipboard
It is rare that anyone restores chipboard furniture, as it does not last long. But if you update it, then for a few more years it will stand idle. Restoration involves not only updating the walls, but also strengthening the surface, since it is it that is prone to damage.
How to paint chipboard furniture? First you need to prepare the product elements for painting. Cleaning the surface from the old coating is carried out in one of the ways - chemical or thermal. The first involves the use of various solvents to clean the old coating. They take it depending on how the old furniture is processed.
The thermal method involves the use of heat treatment - air or steam, for which a building hair dryer is used. Using a stream of warm air, the old coating softens and is easily removed with a spatula.
What is done next?
After the old paint has been removed, it is possible to repair roughness and scratches with putty. And when everything dries up, processing is done with sandpaper. Remove dust from the surface with a dry piece of cloth or blow off with a vacuum cleaner. It is also necessary to perform wet cleaning of the room where the repair was carried out.
Acrylic paints are used to update furniture from particleboard, because they are easy to apply, and they do not emit harmful components. Alkyd and oil formulations may be used. Acrylic is water-based, so it dries quickly. Before coating, the entire area is treated with a primer, which must be chosen by the same manufacturer and selected according to the tone of the paint. Apply it with a brush or roller, it is only important that the layer is thin - it dries quickly.
When the primer has dried, you can start painting the surface with a brush or roller. The layer is applied in one direction, and the second is perpendicular to the first. The number of layers depends on what color you want to get. It is possible to add gloss and smoothness when applying a transparent varnish. Processing is preferable to perform in several layers, after drying the previous one.
At the end, the fittings change. The updated product takes on an attractive look. This is the whole procedure on how to paint furniture based on particleboard. After processing, it will last several years.
Antique
How to paint furniture at home? If the interior of the room is made in the style of country or Provence, then the furniture can be decoratively aged. This procedure is carried out after the main painting. It is advisable to use chalk paints that are used in home art. Water-based matte paints are also suitable.
The coloring composition should be applied with wide strokes, performing work so that there are no smudges. It is necessary to wait for the first layer to dry, to check whether processing with fine sandpaper is required to level the surface. After that, the next layer is applied.
Aging
Aging is performed as follows:
- If you want the wood pattern to be visible through the paint, then one layer is enough.
- The aging effect is performed by fine-grained sandpaper. You should rub it with areas where furniture is usually washed, for example, near handles and in corners.
- To create the effect of the appearance of old paint through a new one, paint is applied to a dry brush, rubbed with a rag and painted on the main color.
- Dark wax in areas of frequent use of furniture must perform the effect of scuffing or contamination.
- Antiquity of furniture will allow you to create a dark lacquer and transparent wax.
- You can perform the appearance of multiple colors. For this, several layers are applied in different directions.
These methods are used both separately and together. As a result, you can paint the furniture with your own hands, giving it the right look. Such a product can last for many more years.
Recommendations
How to paint old furniture with high quality? To do this, take into account some nuances. Their use allows you to quickly perform this work, spending a minimum of money and get the perfect look of the product. The secrets of successful work are as follows:
- Materials must be taken from one manufacturer. This applies to varnish, paint, primer, putty. In this situation, their compatibility will not spoil the result of the restoration. Also, the manufacturer produces coatings for different materials.
- It is necessary to choose colors that will visually expand the area of ββthe room. You can paint the furniture white, so that the space becomes more spacious. The contrast of furniture with walls is also considered unique, no matter what combination is used.
- For work, it is necessary to prepare a roller with which varnish and paint are applied to wide surfaces, as well as brushes, with the help of which it is convenient to update the ends of the elements and accessories.
- It is necessary to use construction tape to protect painted surfaces from the ingress of the paint composition, if several tones of paint are used. Do not clean paint droplets with solvent, as the surface may be damaged.
- For safety, use a respirator and gloves. It is necessary to regularly ventilate the room, although modern varnishes and paints do not emit toxins and pungent odors.
How to paint furniture white? This procedure is performed in a standard way with the preparation of the surface and the observance of important processing steps. Only then will we get a neat design.
There may be many ideas for updating furniture, but staining is an effective way. With it, the product will not only look great, but it will also last for a long time.
Instead of a conclusion
These simple tips will help you figure out how to color the furniture. With them, it will be possible to avoid many mistakes and ultimately get a quality piece of furniture. In this way, many types of wooden furniture can be updated.