How To: Refinish Furniture

remember the bedside cabinet project i posted recently? i received a few comments and emails asking for some step by step guidance on how i achieved that result. if you have any further questions just leave it in the comments section!

1. find a piece of solid wood furniture. it must be solid wood - not veneered. i picked up my cabinets on eBay for £15 for the pair. other places to try are car boot sales or why not ask friends and family if they have any surplus lying around? in chorlton, manchester (near where i live) there are lots of secondhand furniture stores (don't forget to negotiate the price!) and i'm sure you'd find similar in less upmarket areas in your region.


2. preparation is key! you should aim to start with a piece of furniture that is already in good condition but don't be scared if there's the odd repair to do. i had a few unsightly areas to fill in - where joints didn't meet each other perfectly and to cover the screws which fixed the 'feet' to the cabinet. i used an all purpose polyfilla that we had lying around.



3. sand it. my bedside cabinets had a very light varnish applied. sanding roughed this up, ready for painting. i don't think you need to go crazy and spend a lot of time on this. i didn't even use an electric sander - i used sandpaper around a block of wood in my hand. take care to clean away every last bit of dust before you start painting.

4. paint it. now for the fun stuff! i painted mine outside under the blazing sunshine. the positive in doing this was that each coat dried really fast so i was able to get several coats done in one day. wherever you paint make sure it's well ventilated. a garage with the door open would be ideal. i used a brush for the fiddly areas and a roller for the larger parts. i'm not going to lie - this was far more time consuming than i thought it would be. if you have access to a paint sprayer you'll have a much easier time and the result will be better.

i used 'one coat' matt emulsion in pure brilliant white and applied 3 coats.

5. distress it. once your furniture is newly painted you might find it hard to whip out the sandpaper once more to distress the edges but it looks fantastic, i promise. without distressing, the piece would look too generic and 'new'. i rubbed away the paint on the edges and corners on randomly selected parts - i went with my gut feeling and it worked.

6. varnish it. i used ronseal quick drying clear satin varnish. i applied two coats all over but did four on the top which will experience heavy wear. i used a high quality harris brush (which doesn't shed hairs) for the best application. this varnish applies beautifully so long as you go easy and don't apply too thickly.

7. finishing touches. the handles you choose can 'make' your piece so choose carefully. mine are sparkly glass and were only £3.49 each from B&Q (in store, not online). B&Q have a huge selection, which you'll find located in the door furniture aisle. homebase is another store that's worth a look. if you want to splash out and get something even more special try anthropologie.

and the final result:

good luck if you decide to try it!

♥