Why Should I Have a Professional Refinish My Old Furniture?
Refinishing furniture is a popular DIY task, but not everyone has the time, interest or skill necessary to get the job done right. If you’ve never refinished furniture before, there’s a high risk of damaging the piece even beyond the wear it’s already incurred over the years, which means you may be better off having a professional take on the job instead. That’s not to mention that the job can involve the use of some hazardous chemicals that you may wish to avoid.
Simply put, while there may not be a number of complicated steps associated with refinishing wooden furniture, the actual process of doing it is not as simple as it seems on the surface. There are a lot of challenges that can come up, and if you’re working on restoring a family heirloom or other meaningful piece of furniture, you’re better off hiring a professional painter in Pensacola, FL who knows what they’re doing. Save your DIY experiments for items you don’t care as much about!
Determining when refinishing is a good idea
Before you go full steam ahead with hiring someone to refinishing wooden furniture, you’ll first need to determine whether refinishing is actually a good idea for what you’re working on. There are several factors to take into consideration, including the following:
- Paint or no paint: If the wood was painted, it’s going to be a much more challenging job than if the wood was simply stained, and it also means you’re not going to be certain what condition the wood is in underneath until you’ve actually finished stripping the paint. Many times, when wood is painted over, there’s a reason for it, likely to cover up imperfections, damage or stains. We generally recommend against painting over solid wood to begin with, but if the damage has already been done, just know that you’re never going to be completely certain what you’re getting yourself into until you strip the paint. It may turn out that staining and sealing the wood after stripping the paint is not going to give you great results.
- Construction: Was it made with solid wood, or with another material, such as a particleboard or laminate? The latter materials aren’t going to be worth refinishing, but you can get a lot of life out of solid wood, even if the surface has degraded a bit. Pieces from before the 1960s were generally made with solid wood, and depending on the time in which the piece was initially constructed, it could be quite valuable, in which case restoring it would be very much worth your while.
- Appearance: Keep in mind that if an antique gets refinished, it will tend to turn out darker than the original wood. Try to find a piece of the wood that’s original and intact, and expect your finished product to turn out a bit darker than that. This is also a good time to check the woodgrain and determine whether or not you actually want it to show.
For more information about refinishing projects and the other services offered by professional painters in Pensacola, FL, reach out to Fresh Start Painting Inc. today.
