Triple the wreath

November 16, 2015 by Hillary 4 Comments

It feels a little weird to jump into a Christmas wreath tutorial without an explanation of where I’ve been for the last…oh, eight months. In May I ripped out and remodeled our laundry room, and I don’t do big projects and blogging at the same time. Then summer came and the kids were home, and I don’t do hanging out with my kids and blogging at the same time. Then the kids went back to school and I started a new job with our local Children’s Museum. So now, a blog that was only a hobby to begin with has been downgraded to…I can’t even think of something lower on the priority list than a hobby.

But when Jamie at That’s My Letter approached me about working with her and *The Home Depot on a DIY Workshop project, I thought, why not? Sounds like fun. I like working on a team, I like a challenge. I like DIY Workshops at The Home Depot. I’ll update my readers between now and when the project goes up. Then the whole summer went by. Then the fall. And now The Home Depot is into Christmas stuff so we’re into Christmas stuff and half a year has passed from me without a peep.

And yet. And yet I still get comments from you guys on the blog. Daily.

Questions about putting together this and finishing that and how do I get rid of that vinegar smell when I oxidize a piece of furniture? So I know you’re still there and I know that you know that I’m one of those unreliable bloggers, but that when I show up in your feed, you go ooh, I haven’t heard from her in a while! So, Hello! Here I am. And I’ve got a cool project to share with you today.

The Home Depot has teamed up with a few bloggers (The Friendly Home included) to bring you a special Christmas DIY Workshop treat. As you probably know, The Home Depot offers DIY workshops at all of their locations for people of all ages and experience levels. There are three types of workshops offered — Do-It-Yourself (DIY), Do-It-Herself (DIH), and Kids. The workshops cover everything from decor projects (like this one) to making easy home repairs and operating tools through demonstrations and step-by-step instructions. You can find out more about their workshops here. If you’d like a live demo on making your own Christmas Wreath Trio at The Home Depot, you can find out more and register for that workshop here.

Let me give you a word of warning about this project. When you put three wreaths together, they’re heavy. I didn’t weigh mine but, like, my arm got tired when I was hanging them from my door. And I’m no weakling. But what I discovered after I hung the wreaths on my door is that they’d probably work better on a front door that doesn’t get much use.

Like, when I was growing up, we used our garage door almost exclusively. The only time we opened and closed our front door was when my mom put a new wreath on it or when the Girl Scouts came to the front door to sell cookies. That is a situation where these wreaths would be perfect. A door that is far from the road and needs a big pop to be seen, and a door that doesn’t get opened and closed much. Because these wreaths are heavy and they create kind of a ruckus every time you open and close the door.

For this project, we were supposed to go to the Depot (that’s what we call it in our family), choose three wreaths, wire them together, decorate them, and hang them. Well…I’m not super into decorating anything. Building things? Yes. Decorating them? Please. When I have that kind of leisure time in my life, I use it to sit down with a beer and a good movie or a book. Or I build something useful. I’m all about function, not so much about form.

So when I saw already-decorated wreaths sitting next to the plain wreaths for only $2 more, I was like…uh, did they say I couldn’t use these? Because I’m using these. Especially because they were decorated with pinecones and sticks and juniper sprigs and berries. I had imagined myself walking around the neighborhood, collecting bits and pieces of nature to decorate my wreaths but the Depot just saved me hours. And very scratched-up hands.

I did, however, want to add lights and a little bling. I found these awesome Martha Stewart lights that I had no idea existed, (I may have had a where have you BEEN all my life? reaction in the store, actually). Each strand runs on 3 AA batteries. They’re LED so I expect that the batteries will last a while. And, the coolest part, they’re on an automatic timer. I feel a little late to the game here, so feel free to roll your eyes when I tell you this, but these lights go on when you switch them on, turn off 6 hours later, and turn back on again 18 hours later. So, turn them on at 5pm, they turn off at 11pm, and then they turn on again all by themselves the following day at 5pm. And the cycle continues.

Genius. I can build a table or an entertainment center or a giant armoire but I never would have come up with that.

In addition to the lights, I wanted some bling. At first, I was thinking about taking some tin snips to some old beer cans, cutting out shapes and tinsel, and winding those into the wreath for a little shimmer. But then I imagined myself digging through the recycling, rinsing old cans, and cutting myself on the edge of the aluminum as I cut out my shapes. I even googled “beer can tinsel” while I was standing in the Depot. Meh. I wasn’t inspired.

Instead, I wandered around the store, specifically the metal aisle, and found some thick copper wire. Lalalala! This would be perfect and my family could work with it (and complete half the project for me).

Here are the supplies I used.

3 decorated wreaths (about $8/each)
3 strands of Martha Stewart LED lights (also about $8/each)
2 coils of copper wire (about $5/each)
Suction cup hangers to attach wreaths to my storm door (about $1.50/each)
Wire cutters
Needle nose pliers
Pens and other objects to use as forms for wrapping copper wire

Everything but the copper wire is in the holiday section at the Depot. The copper wire is in the aisle with the screws and sheet metal. If your back is to the screws, you’ll be looking at the metal stuff (at least in my store).

Here are a few things I learned along the way.

Don’t wire the battery packs for your lights in the top of the wreath. That’s where your hanger is going to go and the battery pack will get in the way.
Do turn on your lights before you start, to be sure they all work.
Do keep the lights on as you’re winding them into your wreath — it’s much easier to see where they’re going when they’re on.
Do get help from your family if you’re playing with copper wire. Scott and my kids had fun seeing what shapes they could create. Copper wire is easy to work with and it’s a fun family activity.

Here’s how this triple wreath creation went down.

Lay the wreaths upside-down on a flat surface and wire them together.

Prepare your lights (add batteries, turn them on, uncoil the wires) and wire the battery packs to your wreath form. I put mine at the top of each wreath so they’d be hidden, but I should have put them at about 10 or 2 on the wreath, to make room for the wreath hangers at the top.

Flip all three of the wreaths over and weave your lights into the wreaths.

Decorate. We made little copper coils and funky shapes (including Christmas trees, an angel, and a cat — or dog, depending on whom you ask).

I’m not the only blogger who’s got a trio of Christmas wreaths hanging on my door. In fact, The Home Depot teamed up with a whole bunch of us and you won’t believe the creativity you’ll see in some of the other wreaths. Here’s a list of them — check them out!

*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. The Home Depot provided me with gift cards to cover the cost of materials for this project.

A modern take on a primitive cabinet

April 16, 2015 by Hillary 14 Comments

My friend Emily and I share the same house. Not the same same house, but the same floorplan. In fact, that’s how we became friends. I’m nosy and saw her husband out in their driveway working at his tile saw and I just had to see what was going on inside that house. So I asked for a tour. That was about seven years ago and we’ve been great friends ever since.

Being friends with someone whose house is like your house’s fraternal twin is pretty fun. It’s fun to see what they’ve done differently and it’s really fun to bounce ideas off of each other. Or, like Emily sometimes says, you can wait for the other person to make a change so you can see how it turned out before committing to it at your own house.

In our floorplan, we’ve got a loft that is a fantastic, flexible, multi-use space. You can check out mine here. Emily and I both have sewing nooks in our lofts where there used to be a closet. Here’s my sewing nook. She also has a computer area in her loft, and so do we. But instead of devoting the remaining loft space to crafts, like in my loft, hers is a media area for playing video games or watching tv and movies. Emily’s family has a lot of movies (which is one of the many perks of being friends with them). Until now, they didn’t have a great place to store their movies, so Ana White and I worked together with Emily and her husband to create a cabinet that would fit their space and their DVDs. Ana designed the piece to be built with 1×12 boards but since Emily’s loft is not a very deep space and since we only wanted to put DVDs in the cabinet, we built the piece out of 1x8s instead, making it significantly more shallow — the perfect depth for all of those movies and video games. You can get Ana’s plans for the piece here.

When we were designing this cabinet, we did it with the look of an old pie safe in mind but we doubled the width and instead of using traditional hand-hammered pie safe inserts in the cabinet doors, we used laser cut sheet metal inserts that you can pick up at any Lowe’s or Home Depot (here’s what I used — and I got all four panels out of one 36″x36″ piece of material). You could do the same or you could try your hand at making your own metal inserts. Or you could make your doors completely out of wood. Any way you do it, your result will be a beautiful, functional piece!

For me, this piece was a big step up from what I’ve built in the past. Why? Two reasons. First, this is a stained piece. Whenever a you build a piece with a stained finish in mind, you’ve got to be super careful as you’re building. With a painted piece you can fix most mistakes with wood filler and even caulk if you’re desperate. But on a stained piece? Uh uh. Your cuts have to be right on and you’ve got to be mindful about how many holes you put in the wood and where you put them. Second, I built this piece out of oak, and oak is expensive. I’m used to working with pine…sometimes even super cheap #2 pine. If you’re working with pine and you screw up a cut you can run back to the lumber yard and grab another piece. You probably won’t be out more than eight bucks. But with oak? You screw it up and you’re looking at some serious dough to replace that board. For me, that’s intimidating and it was a big hurdle I had to overcome in order to build this piece.

Honestly, if it weren’t for Emily’s husband being adamant that this cabinet must be made from oak and must be stained, I would have made it from pine and painted it. Sometimes it takes a good friend’s stubborn challenge to make you grow, doesn’t it? I’m so thankful for his challenge and for their confidence in me.

In order to get perfect cuts, I did all of the cuts when I had plenty of time and knew I wouldn’t be distracted. Also, since I don’t have a sliding miter saw (sliders can cut wider boards — mine will only cut up to a 1×6), I stopped by a friend’s house to borrow hers for the cuts on the 1×8 boards. I didn’t want to make the cuts with my circular saw or do the whole cut one side, flip it over and cut the rest of the way on my miter saw. I wanted the cuts to be perfect.

Another change for me on this piece was that I finished the cut boards before putting the piece together. You know how difficult it can be to finish the inside of a piece. I didn’t want any goofy looking corners on the inside of the piece, so I finished the insides before putting it all together, leaving the spots where I’d be gluing joints unsealed so that the glue would take to the wood rather than the sealer. For the doors, I finished both sides before putting them together with the metal inserts inside.

Let’s talk about that finish. It’s probably my favorite part of this whole project (even though it was painfully slow going). For the finish, I used powdered milk paint by The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company. I mixed a bit of the Pitch Black powder with the Antique White powder and then watered it way down to make a stain. I don’t keep very good track of things like this, but I’d guess that I used around 1:3 or 1:4 ratio of black to white in order to get the grey color I wanted.

I tested a few different stains (including my nemesis, oil-based stain) and a few different species of wood before deciding on milk paint and Red Oak. Those two together were the only way to get the look I wanted!

Stain stirred, shaken, and ready to go.

I used my favorite Blue Hawk brush to apply the stain and I let it dry (don’t try to wipe it off like you would with oil-based stain). Then I applied a second coat. To seal the wood, I used one coat of clear wax, buffed, and followed it with two coats of brown wax, buffing between coats. The stain looked a bit opaque when it first dried, but once I sealed it with wax, the grain popped right out. I would imagine you’d get a similar result from sealing with some kind of poly sealer (for a heavy-use piece like a coffee table or dining table).

Oak boards cut and ready to be finished before assembly. From left to right you can see the two legs, the bottom, the top, and the center divider. The legs and center divider all have pocket holes where they’ll meet up with the face frame so that I didn’t need to face nail the face frame.

1x8s stained and drying. Almost ready for assembly.

Assembling the 1x8s upside down.

The cabinet box is laid out on top of the face frame and ready to be attached. I built the face frame separately, joining it with pocket holes, and then attached it to the cabinet box using pocket holes from inside the cabinet itself.

After the face frame was attached, I glued and clamped the 1×2 crown to the top front of the piece. Once the crown was on, I attached the base moulding.

In order to get the right height base moulding in the right species of wood, I had to use two separate pieces of base and attach them individually. Next came the back. I finished it first before clamping it to the piece and stapling it in place with my pneumatic stapler.

For the doors, first I cut the boards using a stop block on my miter saw (so they’d be precisely the same lengths). Then I used my table saw to cut a 1/8″ channel on the insides of the boards into which I would later slide my metal door inserts. Next I drilled my pocket holes, stained and sealed all of the individual pieces, and then clamped the pieces together before joining with wood glue and screws.

This is how my table saw was set up to cut the channels for the metal inserts in the doors.

The finished cabinet in its new home!

For the hinges on this piece, I used the Amerock full wrap hinges in oil rubbed bronze. These hinges are somewhat adjustable so if your doors are off (mine were a little off because my miter saw is out of square) you have some wiggle room. Since these hinges aren’t self-closing, I attached blocking to the inside top of the face frame where the tops of the two sets of doors close. Then I attached this magnetic catch to the blocking to keep the doors closed.

Now, the cost to build this beauty in the 1×8 size (obviously the price will go up if you build it from 1x12s). If you build it out of pine, you’ll save significant cash. Here is an approximate breakdown of what I spent:

Lumber: #1 pine $200.00 OR red oak $350.00
Hardware: $40.00
Metal door inserts: $35.00
Finishing supplies: $20.00
Total: $300-$450 (plus tax!)

What do you think about that finish? Do you also need a little push to work with nicer, more expensive materials when you’re building?

Furniture Painting 101: choosing your paint

April 9, 2015 by Hillary Leave a Comment

Welcome to the third post in our series on furniture painting! You can catch up with the rest of the series here.

We’ve talked about getting the right base coat and about my favorite tools for painting furniture. Now it’s time to move onto the exciting part: the paint. These days you’ve got tons of choices when it comes to what kind of paint you use and they all have their time and place (except latex paint — please don’t paint furniture with latex paint unless you don’t really care about the furniture). Let’s talk about what’s available and when to use it.

Spray paint. I avoid this one whenever possible, but sometimes…sometimes there’s no better option. So, for metal furniture like the chairs below, or for a piece with lots of spindles (assuming you don’t have a paint sprayer) you really need a can of spray paint, super toxic nightmare that it may be, in order to get a decent finish. Do it when the weather is warm and there’s no wind. Do it outside on a large drop cloth. Wear a mask. Use a spray primer first and then use several light coats of paint and you’ll have a hard-to-scratch finish that will last you for a long time. I do not endorse spray paint except to say that sometimes it is a necessary evil. It should be the exception, not the rule.

Spindles…easiest to paint with a sprayer or (gasp) spray paint.

Chalk paint. I haven’t used the famous Annie Sloan paint, but I have used CeCe Caldwell and Fat Paint. There are lots of chalk paint options out there — from what I’ve seen they’re all pretty similar. What is not similar? Taking latex or acrylic paint and adding unsanded grout to it in order to make your own chalk paint. I’ve tried it. I was not impressed. If you’re looking for the qualities of real chalk paint, you’ll need to use real chalk paint. Real chalk paint is made with clay and minerals — no plastics, no rubber. Here are a few reasons to love chalk paint:

It can give you a variety of looks, from totally solid and pristine to very distressed, all depending on your application technique. Spray for a solid finish, hand-paint with a good bristle brush for anything from slightly distressed to heavily distressed.
Easy to distress. Until it is sealed, chalk paint comes off easily with light sanding or a damp sponge.
Can avoid sanding. If you’re one of the people who hates sanding, you can get away with using a damp sponge to distress chalk paint instead of using sandpaper, but you should still sand between coats if you want a smooth feel to your finish. (I say you “might” be able to get away with a wet sponge because the moisture in the sponge will draw out some of the different tones in your paint. So what may have been a solid navy blue will now be streaked with lighter white/grey/blue tones where your sponge ran over the paint. For some people, this is a benefit. For others, it’s a drawback. If you don’t like the streaky/mottled look it gives, then be sure you spray your chalk paint AND only use sandpaper to distress it.)
Color variation. Not only will you get some color variation from distressing with a damp sponge, you’ll get color variation when you paint with a brush. Again, this is great if it’s what you’re going for. If it’s not what you are looking for, then spray your chalk paint. Water it way down before spraying and then spray light and even coats. (Dilute it to 70/30 paint to water? Maybe more?)
Chalk paint is most definitely low-odor and non-toxic. If you are sensitive to odors and fumes, this is your paint.
A little goes a long way. Some people complain that chalk paint is expensive. Compared to latex paint intended for walls (not furniture), yes…it is. But it goes much farther (especially if your piece is prepped properly) and, probably, since you’re using chalk paint you’re going for a distressed look which means you don’t need a whole lot of paint to begin with. On distressed pieces, you can get away with a less-than-solid coat.
Chalk paint can go on over any old finish…and stick. It might take more than one coat to get it to stick, but it will stick and once it’s sealed it’s a super-durable finish.
Easy clean up. Chalk paint washes right out of your brush, off your containers, off your hands, and out of your hair.

Chalk painted kitchen island (sprayed)

Chalk Painted Bed from Furniture Painting 101 at The Friendly Home

Chalk painted bed (brushed and distressed)

Milk paint. Now let’s be clear: I’m talking about milk paint that comes in the powdered form. You mix up only as much as you need, mix the different colored powders together to get the color you want. Think Sweet Pickins or Miss Mustard Seed. You can also get the Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company’s paint at your local Woodcraft. That’s how I get mine. I initially steered clear of milk paint because I thought I’d want it for touch-ups somewhere down the road but once you mix a batch it goes bad after a few weeks (because it’s got milk in it). It turns out I don’t touch up my furniture, so that’s not an issue. Between the generally distressed state of most of my furniture anyway and the hassle of matching both the paint color AND the sheen of the topcoat (clear sealer or wax), I just don’t bother. Plus, we’re not all that hard on our furniture and if it gets that beat up, I’m probably ready to give it a whole new look anyway. All that to say, don’t let the fact that you can’t store milk paint for touch ups keep you from using milk paint. Because, it totally rocks. Here’s why:

Authenticity. A chippy/distressed painted finish does not get more authentic than a real milk paint finish. Maybe it’s because milk paint is genuinely old. It’s what people used before lead-based paint, before latex, before acrylic. It looks old because it is old.
Surprise! Milk paint sometimes has a mind of its own. You can’t always control it and you shouldn’t try to. While chalk paint can stick to anything, milk paint sticks best to raw wood (it will bond in such a way that you’ll have to sand through it to get it off). Milk paint will also stick to primer and to old finishes that have been deglossed…usually. But sometimes two parts of a piece of furniture that you prepped exactly the same way will have totally different effects on the milk paint. In some places it will peel right off and in other places it will stick like crazy. This is the fun of milk paint. Unless that’s not fun…
Control. If letting the paint choose the kind of finish isn’t your kind of fun, then you can add some extra bond, a milk paint product that promotes adhesion, to your paint. I have a bottle of extra bond but I’ve never used it. I think it takes all the fun out of the process!
Chippy finish. There is no better way to get an authentic chippy finish than with milk paint. Chalk paint will not (cannot) give you a chippy finish. Chalk paint distresses where you distress it. Milk paint distresses where it doesn’t stick, and you’ll know where to knock off the dried paint because it will curl up and crack right off.
Easy to sand. All of this curling and cracking makes sanding really quick and easy. A light sanding over the whole piece will knock off any paint that’s not going to stay and then you’re ready for your sealer.
Color variation. Milk paint gives you the most incredible color variation, much like chalk paint, when the paint settles into wood grain or when different minerals rise to the top of the paint in various places on your piece. It is a rich, beautiful finish.
Milk paint is most definitely low-odor and non-toxic. If you are sensitive to odors and fumes, this is your paint.
Easy clean up. Like chalk paint, milk paint is super easy to clean up.

Old Fashioned Milk Paint in Tavern Green.

Milk paint choosing where to stick and where to flake off…

Acrylic paint. My favorite acrylic paint is General Finishes Milk Paint. I think they call it “milk paint” because it has a low-luster finish that somewhat resembles real milk paint, but real milk paint it is not. The other major brands (Sherwin-Williams, Benjamin Moore, etc.) all have their own acrylic paint meant for cabinets, furniture, and trim. That’s what you want. Not wall paint. Acrylic paint is great for a few different things:

Solid finish. If you want a solid, predictable, self-leveling, perfectly smooth finish, you want acrylic paint.
Lightly distressed finish. If you want a mostly solid finish but you want to be able to distress a bit around the edges or corners (since if you don’t do it now, your kids will do it later for you), then you want acrylic paint. General Finishes Milk Paint distresses the most easily and evenly and smoothly of any acrylic I’ve worked with — probably because it’s not glossy.
Hard-curing, long wearing. A good acrylic paint will give you a long lasting, hard finish. It’s great on kitchen cabinets and high-use furniture.
Easy to brush. With a decent brush (like my favorite Blue Hawk brush) you can easily brush on a great smooth finish. If you’re doing a huge project, like an entire kitchen’s worth of cabinets, do yourself a favor and buy a sprayer. You can always sell it later. But for a smaller project, like one piece of furniture, a brush will work well for acrylic paint.

For a solid finish, use acrylic paint. This was brushed on.

Oil-based paint. Like spray paint, oil-based paint that you can brush on is the scourge of the paint world (environmentally speaking) but it does have its time and place…for the right people. When we first moved into our house, I used oil-based paint on my 1970’s oak kitchen cabinets. Most of those cabinets are now in the garage and they’re the ONLY piece of painted furniture (factory-painted or DIY) that has not chipped or otherwise shown some kind of wear. They look incredible — the finish has outlasted my factory painted KraftMaid kitchen cabinets. The oil-based paint still looks great even though I painted the cabinets in 2004! Despite all of the benefits of oil-based paint, I haven’t used it again since I did my old cabinets. Here are some things to think about when it comes to oil-based paint:

Disposal. Ugh. Disposal is a pain in the neck. You can’t rinse your brush in the faucet (water will cause the paint to congeal and ruin your brush), so you have to soak your brushes in paint thinner or mineral spirits. Those need to be taken to your county hazardous waste disposal. DO NOT pour them down the drain, into your neighborhood storm drain, or into your yard. They are toxic to you and to the earth.
Brushes. You’ll need special brushes for oil-based paint — ones marked for oil.
Odor. If you’re sensitive to odor, you’ll have a tough time with oil-based paint.
Dry time. Expect to paint one coat, wait a day, sand, clean, paint the second coat, wait a day…etc. You get the idea. You won’t have your garage back for a week or so, even if you’re working on a small project.
Primer. You’ll need an oil-based primer (like the original Kilz) under your oil-based paint.
Durability. So we’ve established that application and cleanup are a major pain in the you-know-what. But you know what’s great? You’ll never have to do it again. If this is a piece you’re planning to keep forever or if it’s your kitchen cabinets and you see yourself in this house for another 20 years, using oil might be worth the hassle.
Finish. Oil-based paint self-levels incredibly well, probably because of the long drying time. If it gets too thick, dilute it with paint thinner and keep going with thin coats.

Sorry…this is the best I can do for a photo of the 2004 cabinet paint job (unless you want to see my mess of a garage). Trust me, the paint is still in great shape.

So there you go…a roundup of my favorite kinds of paint. Next up I’ll share my tips for technique and then we’ll talk about sealers.

Furniture painting 101: the tools

March 3, 2015 by Hillary 3 Comments

This is part two in the Furniture Painting 101 series. See part one, all about prep and base coats, here.

An important part of getting a great finish is using the right tools. I haven’t tried every brush or tool out there, but I have tried quite a few. Here are the ones I use:

Blue Hawk 2″ Angled brush. I used to be a dedicated Purdy brush user but I’d heard great things about these little blue brushes so I decided to give one a try. I’m a convert. It’s comfortable in my hand, it washes well, it doesn’t leave brush strokes, it doesn’t shed…what more could you want? Oh, and it’s cheap. I buy mine at Lowe’s. Tip: before you start painting with a water-based paint or primer, get your brush wet and then shake out as much of the water as you can. Starting with a damp brush makes the brush work better and it keeps it from absorbing as much paint down at the roots of the bristles which makes it easier to clean later.

Brush comb. An old fork works almost as well as a brush comb, but I finally broke down and bought an actual comb instead of using an old fork. It makes a huge difference in how clean I can get my brushes and how long it takes to get them clean. Tip: when you’re done cleaning your brush, store it bristles up. This way, any residual paint flows down into the roots and dries there rather than gumming up the tips of your bristles.

A few old plastic containers. Before I throw them in the recycling bin, I use old plastic containers for finishing furniture. I use them for two things. First, I use them to hold paint — whether I’m mixing a custom mix of acrylic paint or mixing up milk paint from powder or just decanting part of a can of paint. The seal on your old sour cream container’s top won’t last forever but it’s perfect for using over the course of a few days or even weeks. It’s a lot easier to open than a can of paint and it keeps you from gumming up the edge of the paint can by repeatedly pouring from the can into a tray or plate. Second, I use these containers to hold water while I’m painting. Tip: keeping water nearby is a great way to keep your paint thin and your brush flexible. Once I’ve been working on a project for a bit, I notice that my brush starts to get a little stiff as the paint dries. Having a container of water nearby allows me to re-wet my brush, squeeze out most of the water, and go back to painting without noticeable brush strokes. It’s also great if I need to take a break for a bit — I just submerge my brush in water and then squeeze it out when I return.

Foam rollers. High density foam rollers are great for giving you a smooth, brush stroke-free finish on expansive, flat surfaces like table tops and cabinet doors. It is possible to wash foam rollers and use them again, but the quality of the foam deteriorates with every wash, so you’re better off just using one roller per project and then tossing it. I hate to use anything that is one-use, but when you’re going for a smooth finish you need a good roller. I try to keep a pack of 6″ rollers and a pack of 4″ rollers in my garage since I never know when the mood will strike! For cabinet doors, I’d probably use a 4″ roller but for a table top or something wider and flatter than cabinet doors I’d use a 6″. When I’m going for a really rustic finish, I don’t bother using a roller since brush strokes are part of the charm. Tip #1: when you’re in between coats, just wrap your roller up in a plastic bag. It will keep that way for a few hours or longer while you wait for each coat to dry. Tip #2: foam rollers are great for applying a sealer, like a clear acrylic poly. In order to reduce your chance of getting bubbles in the topcoat, be sure you don’t jostle the roller around too much or roll it too quickly or with too much force. There’s a bit of an art to applying topcoat with a roller, but once you figure it out you’ll be happy with the result.

Paint tray. I really like these Purdy Eco-Pro paint trays. Sometimes I can find them at Home Depot — our Lowe’s only carries plastic and recycled plastic. In a pinch, a paper plate or a the bottom of a cardboard box out of your recycling bin will work just as well as a paint tray for this application (not so much for painting walls — then you need a real paint tray). When you’re using a foam roller, you definitely need some kind of tray to roll the extra paint off of your roller. I’ll go to great lengths to avoid buying the plastic (even recycled plastic) roller trays! Tip: if you’ve got old, dried paint stuck to your roller tray, don’t pour new paint into the tray. The old paint will flake off into the new paint. Instead, try covering your tray in aluminum foil or wrapping it in an old plastic shopping bag in order to get more use out of it.

Paint sprayer. If you’re doing a huge project, like all of your kitchen cabinets, or if you find yourself painting more and more furniture pieces, it might be time to invest in a good sprayer. I use the Fuji Mini-Mite sprayer (a friend and I split it, which is a great way to buy an expensive tool that isn’t being used daily — ours cost around $600). The Mini-Mite is really loud (like a super loud vacuum cleaner) but it leaves an excellent finish. I’ve also heard great things about the less expensive Earlex Spray Station (costs around $260 at Home Depot — looks like it works just like my Mini-Mite but for about half the price; General Finishes uses one in their spraying tutorials on YouTube) and the super cheap HomeRight Finish Max (costs around $70 at Home Depot — I’ve talked to a few other bloggers use and love the HomeRight for small projects). None of these three sprayers requires an air compressor which is a huge plus for most people, since sprayers that use an air compressor generally require a large-capacity compressor, not the little ones that we use with our nail guns. I don’t have personal experience with either the Earlex or the HomeRight — if you try them or if you have one, let me know what you think! I have tried one of the cheap ($70-$80) Wagner paint sprayers and did not have good luck with it — in fact, I returned it after the first use because the finish was so rough. So I wouldn’t recommend that one! Tip: clean your sprayer as soon as you finish using it, even in between coats. This will keep your spray tip from clogging. Also, keep some spare parts on hand! There’s nothing worse than starting up the sprayer and realizing you need a new part…that you can’t get at your local hardware store. Yeah, it’s happened to me. At 11:00 at night. No fun.

Fine grit sandpaper. I cannot overemphasize the importance of sanding between coats. If anyone tells you that between-coat sanding isn’t necessary, stop listening immediately because they’re crazy. I’m not talking about a ton of sanding — just a few swipes over the surface of your project to smooth it out. You’ll feel the difference (and agree with me, I hope) when you slide your hand across your project. I use 400 grit paper wrapped around an old sanding sponge and it works perfectly for me. General Finishes recommends a flexible 220-grit sponge like this one for between coats — they say that the flexible 220 sponge is equivalent to 400 grit paper. So you might want to try that out too! Tip: don’t apply a lot of force when you are sanding between coats. All it takes is a light sweep across the surface. If you push too hard you’ll sand through the finish, especially on edges and corners.

Chip brushes. When I’m using wax as a sealer, I apply it with a chip brush. Chip brushes are just cheap-o natural bristle paint brushes that usually come in multi-packs. They lose bristles like crazy, so you’ve got to watch that when you first start using a new one, but they’re great for applying wax. There are dedicated wax application brushes, too…but I’ve never bothered to invest in one. Tip: don’t over-apply your wax. Just use enough to cover the surface in a thin layer, let it dry, buff it, and then add additional coats as needed, depending on how much use the piece will get. I usually do a minimum of two coats of wax.

Rags. When I’m using wax as a sealer, I buff the dried wax with clean, soft cotton rags. Tip #1: you don’t have to push hard when you’re buffing, just move the rag quickly across the surface of your project. This brings out the shine in your wax and makes the surface harder and more durable. Tip #2: don’t buy the red shop rags you might see at the hardware store. If you ever wash them with anything else, the “anything else” will turn pink. I dare you to ask me how I know.

Am I missing any tools that you use when you’re finishing furniture? I know we don’t all finish furniture the same way!

Furniture Painting 101: the base coat

February 18, 2015 by Hillary Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago I was catching up on blog comments (moderating comments and replying is actually one of my favorite jobs…but somehow it always gets left for later) and over and over again I was answering questions related to finishing (or re-finishing) furniture. So I asked on Facebook whether anyone would be interested in a finishing series (with a nod toward sustainable/people-friendly materials of course) and, sure enough! The answer was yes. In thinking about how best to organize a series like this, which is so dependent on the look you would want to end up with, I decided to first divide between painting and staining, and then break it down by base coat, color coat, and sealer. Welcome to the base coat post of Furniture Painting 101.

First things first: prep.

Repair drawers, feet, doors. Remove hardware. Then your piece may need to be sanded and it definitely needs to be cleaned. If there are rough spots or chewed up edges or water damage, sand them down. Then clean the piece really well. I start by vacuuming. If it’s a new build, after vacuuming I wipe it down with a damp cloth and I’m ready to go. If it’s a previously finished piece, I vacuum and then wipe the whole piece down with a diluted vinegar solution. I know some people use TSP (tri-sodium phosphate) but I generally don’t find it necessary. TSP is pretty caustic stuff so I stay away from it when I can. I follow my vinegar step with liquid deglosser (I use the Next brand because it is biodegradable and low-VOC). It helps remove the oils and waxy buildup that you can find on old furniture. Then I move on to my base coat.

What base coat you choose for your furniture depends both on what you’re starting with (unfinished wood? previously finished furniture? and with what kind of finish?). It also depends on what kind of look you’re going for (rustic and chippy? solid and smooth?).

Chippy/Rustic/Distressed finish

Furniture painting 101: the base coat | The Friendly Home

This piece has clear shellac under milk paint.

For a chippy or rustic finish, it may not matter at all how you approach your base coat. The less you think about your base coat, the easier it will be to distress your piece and end up with a rustic finish (i.e.: your paint may peel right off if you don’t choose the right base coat, and this could be good if it’s the look your going for). BUT, if you don’t like the color of your original piece or if it’s unfinished or if you only want moderate distressing, you’re going to need the right base coat. When it comes to base coats for distressed finishes, my best friend is dark brown tinted primer.

Dark brown tinted primer. I happen to use the (no-VOC) Sherwin-Williams Multi-Use Primer deep base tinted to Kona. It is not the best primer out there (it’s not great for challenging adhesion situations nor for stain blocking), but it works for most of my projects and gives me control over the final look. When I’m going for a chippy/distressed finish, I use dark brown tinted primer in these situations:

Unfinished wood when I want good adhesion and I want to trick the eye into thinking that the piece is old and has an old brown finish underneath.
A previously finished piece when I want good adhesion and don’t want to see white primer underneath as I rub through the painted finish. If the piece is going to be white in the end, then I’d use white primer since you won’t be able to tell the difference between the primer and the paint when the paint is distressed.

These tables have dark brown tinted primer under chalk paint.

Dark stain and nothing else. I will use a dark stain as the base coat under paint on new wood projects if

I’m going to take off a lot of paint and I want to be able to see the grain of the wood underneath.
The paint coat is going to be really thin and I want to be able to see the grain of the wood underneath.
I want to raise the grain of the wood so that when I distress the paint I can see the grain through the paint. Water-based stains (which I use almost exclusively) raise the grain of the wood a bit (depending on the wood species — some raise more than others). This is normally considered a negative when it comes to staining, but if your purpose is to see the grain through the paint when you take off some of the paint, then water-based stain makes a good base.

This sideboard has dark brown stain under the acrylic milk paint.

Shellac. Sometimes I’ll use shellac, especially if

The wood has lots of knots and I don’t want the knots bleeding through the painted finish (sometimes it takes years, but the knots almost always come through unless you coat them with shellac or a shellac-based primer).
I’m working on an old piece with a very heavy/waxy finish on it that I think might bleed through the paint later. Again, shellac is great when you’re trying to combat bleed-through, whether from knots or old stain/varnish/oil-based poly. How do you know if it will bleed through? I’m not sure…it’s just a gut thing that comes with painting lots of pieces and then being frustrated that there’s bleed through. So I hedge my bets and probably use shellac more than I need to.
I’m using milk paint on a finished piece and I want to be encourage the paint to stick…but not TOO much. (Sausha has a great post here about milk paint and shellac.)
I’m using chalk paint on an unfinished piece and I want to be able to wipe the paint completely off in some places, with no trace left behind, and have a stained wood look underneath (I’d use amber shellac in this case, see the note blow).

This piece has amber shellac under chalk paint.

Shellac is available in an amber finish which can be great if you’re working with unfinished wood. It will seal the wood (and knots) and give your wood color all in one step. Shellac is stinky because it is alcohol-based, but not the same stinky odors as oil-based finishing products. I use it in areas that are well-ventilated (usually outside) because I’m really sensitive to odors. I usually apply it with disposable foam brushes (despite my abhorrence of all things disposable) because I haven’t found an easy (or green) way to clean it up. Do not try to dilute shellac with water. It will turn into a congealed mess. Also: a note to vegans…shellac is made from secretions of the Lac bug in Asia (or this is what the trusty Internets tell me). It is not a vegan product and I don’t know how sustainably produced it is. Recently, a synthetic version of shellac hit the market but I haven’t tried it yet.

Shellac is also the best odor sealer I’ve ever used. I even use it in my utility room on the plywood sub-floor whenever my cat pees on it (she’s old…sometimes she misses the box. Give her a break). Shellac is great for all odors — pet odors, cigarette smoke (like on the green piece above), mustiness…I’ve used it on floors, drawers, insides of cabinets. It’s SO useful.

Solid finish

For a solid finish, the color of the base coat doesn’t matter as much, except as it relates to stretching your paint color. I know that chalk paint can go on right over any finish, but having the right color primer underneath really helps cut down on how much paint you need, and primer is waaaaay cheaper than paint. Plus…adhesion. It’s just easier for the paint to stick to primer, so that’s what I use when I’m going for a solid finish.

Dark brown tinted primer. I use the same brown primer mentioned above when I’m finishing with a solid dark paint color (like navy or black or red), just to reduce the number of coats of dark paint. Paint is not cheap and this could cut your paint use in half or at least reduce it by a third (as opposed to using a white primer).

Dark brown tinted primer under solid Coastal Blue by General Finishes.

White primer. Again, I usually use the Sherwin-Williams Multi-Use Primer, but in the regular white color. I use it when I’m putting on a solid, light paint color (like robin’s egg blue or butter yellow). It helps with adhesion and also reduces the number of coats, especially if the furniture underneath was a dark color to begin with.

This piece has white primer under white paint.

Shellac. I’ll use shellac under a solid finish if the wood has knots or a suspicious coat of finish that I feel uncomfortable with (see: gut). Shellac has really become my go-to in recent years, after seeing too many old projects have knots or stain bleed through. If knots are the problem, I’ll just spot treat them with shellac and then prime over the knots with whatever primer works best for the project. Shellac-based primers cost a LOT more than multi-purpose primers, so if you’re just priming with a shellac-based primer because you want to block knots, it makes more sense to spot treat with regular shellac. Again, it may take years for you to see bleed through, but in my experience it almost always happens eventually if you skip the shellac before painting.

This is what knot bleed-through looks like. I didn’t treat the knots on this piece before painting.

Milk paint. Milk paint (real milk paint that you mix from a powder, not the acrylic version sold by General Finishes — which I love) can be applied straight to a piece of unfinished furniture and it won’t come off. It won’t chip or peel, possibly not ever, even if left outside. It will eventually fade outside, but it is a really strong finish. SO, if you’re inclined to do a milk paint finish, you can just go straight from unfinished to painted unless you want a primer to get closer to your final color and reduce the amount of paint you have to use.

Chalk paint. Ditto for chalk paint over unfinished wood. I don’t think that the bond between chalk paint and unfinished wood is as strong as milk paint, but it doesn’t need a primer unless you just want to use primer to reduce the amount of paint you have to use.

What to do next…

After any base coat, I’d recommend a light sanding. One swipe with 400 grit paper over the whole piece of furniture is probably all you need. You don’t want to sand through your base coat but you do want to knock down any fuzzies you might get from the wood or just smooth out the primer coat. It really does make a difference in the finished product, I swear. Feel the piece for yourself. Wipe your hand across unsanded primer and then give it a very light sanding and wipe your hand across it again. It feels silkier and that’s what you want (or at least what I want).

To come…

What to use to apply your base coat and a few tricks for application.