Painting Furniture (aka doing things that make you super nervous)
A few years ago, I was living in a small house on a very small budget. It’s always been really important to me to make the home you’re living in, no matter the size, feel like more than walls and a bunch of furniture. I always want to lay my head down in a home. This desire only grew when I had my baby boy.
My mom had an antique shop most of the time I was growing up, so I learned a little bit about antiques and furniture. She had a friend that refinished furniture, he took old beat up pieces and made them beautiful. I actually have a few of his pieces in my home now. It always seemed like something a professional had to do. Painting or stripping or staining a piece of furniture surely wasn’t for amateurs. Then one day, I decided to be brave and give it a try.
I started out with pieces that had no value whatsoever to begin with. Particle board. $2 at a garage sale. My bedroom was full of mismatched pieces that were functional, but not beautiful. But…it’s just furniture right? So I sanded and painted and experimented with stains and waxes. It was so. much. fun!
When I was done, I had painted two cheap bedside tables, and two pretty nice dressers, and no one died. Actually, all the pieces in my room looked like they belonged together. I bought a solid cherry sleigh bed off of a Beg/Barter site on Facebook that had some dings in the finish and painted that too.
My grandmother had an old dining room table that was in storage. Intricate details, 8 chairs, three extra leaves for goodness sakes, and I fell in love. I talked her into gifting it to me, and went to work on that as well. I took old fabric that I had scavenged from my mom (and had been used as pin up curtains in my houses all throughout college), cut it up, and stapled it to the upholstery. I had no idea what I was doing, but the end result was mine and I loved it.
It’s such a great story, looking back. This hobby of mine is something that I didn’t think I was qualified to do. I still know that every single piece I’ve ever done has some imperfections (I can point out every one, if you care to stop by my house), but I ignored that voice inside my head saying “You don’t know how to do that, you haven’t been trained,” and did it anyway. That’s what I see when I look around my house now. I can remember the labor and prayers that went into each and every chair as I painted and sanded and finished it over hours in my garage.
Anyways, that’s my story of how I got started, and why I still continue to refinish my furniture when the whim strikes. Stay posted for “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey would say. :) I’m so excited to share with you the process, and my latest dresser project!