Sunday, June 21, 2009

How To Refurbish Old Furniture

By Tom Miller

Well built wood furniture is difficult to come by these days and often costs an arm and a leg when bought new. Wooden furniture often holds a special place in our lives because it is so beautiful and can easily be passed down from one generation to the next. More and more do-it-yourselfers are buying old pieces of wooden furniture and refurbishing them back to their former condition.

The procedure of turning a forgotten piece of wood furniture that has been forgotten and returning it to a noteworthy piece of art can be time consuming but the end results are worth it. If you have persistence and a little bit of skill then it isn't difficult to restore most wood furniture pieces. Refinishing plain pieces of furniture is always easier when you're first starting out, so you might want to start with a piece like a small dresser or even an old door|doorway|wooden toy). Here are the general steps you'll take to refinish just about any wood tables:

You'll first want to remove any old stain or finish carefully without harming the wood beneath it. You can uncover the bare wood surface of a piece of furniture with chemical removing agents, specially designed tools and lots of elbow grease. Dealing with the original finish of a piece of wood furniture is the first daunting step you'll have to undertake. Cleaning off an old paint finish can take a long time, so be patient and try not to get discouraged by how long it takes.

After removing all the old stain you'll need to sand every surface of the furniture piece you're refinishing. Sanding a piece of wood furniture removes any remaining finish and it prepares the bare wood to accept a new finish of some sort. There are many different tricks you can follow when sanding old wood pieces of furniture with different power sanders.

You can fix split wood pieces with glue and use wood paste to hide any obvious dings. At this point you may need to fix anything that's not working on your wooden piece of furniture. If your wood furniture piece has any metal hinges or handles that aren't working you'll want to replace them now.

There are many different types of stains you can use to change the color of your furniture and then you have to consider what type of wood protection you're going to use to preserve that new finish. When it's time to choose a finish you'll have a lot of options open to you. At this point you can move on to putting on a new finish to your old wood piece of furniture.

When your furniture refinishing project is all finished it's comforting to know that you can transform a piece of trash into treasure! Refinishing an old piece of furniture can be an incredibly rewarding project to take on. Turning a neglected piece of furniture into a surprising treasure can be a great summer home improvement project.

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1 comment:

Frank V said...

Nice Article. I'll keep this stuff in mind when my wood furniture is damaged or gets dirtied by others.

Keep it up!