Hey, kiddos. Don't end up in the Furniture Painters Bad Place. I have been there and it is not pretty.
If you paint furniture you may also have ended up here once or twice. When your decoupage peeled off, your paint started rolling or stains emerged AFTER you top-coated dangit! It's no fun and it takes even more work to get out of the bad place than you think. Good prepping would have saved you
BUT... I -HATE -Prepping!!
Read this if you hate it too.
All the chalk paint retailers make a huge hype about not having to prime first. That may be true but prepping is not the same as priming and you HAVE to prep your furniture.
You just can't slap paint on a dirty or shiny surface and hope it will stay. Well, you can- but it won't.
I have solved this problem for you. I have cut all the answers down to 6 minutes. I have whittled it all down to just a few steps and many of them take more than just a few minutes.
Stop wasting your time and your money with overkill priming or under prepping.
So if you hate all the work you need to do BEFORE you even get to start painting, START HERE.
Let me show you how to do it fast, and how to do it right!
To start make sure you will be working in a piece made of real wood. If you do not know how to tell if the furniture is made of real wood, check out this video from my previous blog.
After you determine if you are dealing with real wood, the first step to prep your piece is to scrub it using a finishing pad with a mixture of water and a cleaner. Yeap, give that baby a bath. Next using a wet dull sanding pad with it a second srub to fully removed away any gunk left in the piece. Rinse it off and you are good to go.
If your piece is still looking a little shiny it is time for the TSP. TSP is a highly concentrated degreaser that neutralizes LED paint.
For pieces that are hanging on to its shine or very ornated pieces, you must bring out the Liquid Deglosser. This is a step up from the TSP. Just follow the instructions of the product for its use.
Now, it is time for a test to see if we are ready to paint. How do we do this? Easy, put some paint on the piece, let it dry and when it is, try to scratch it off. If the paint does not come off you are done prepping, but if it does...
It is time to pull out the big guns!
Use a palm sander with a medium-fine grit. That should do it.
If, and only if, all of these steps fail, then you do not have a choice but to prime your piece.
But do not panic, even when prepping is a MUST, most of my pieces only have needed a good cleaning with the cleaner.
If you want to follow my easy method, using all of my favorite products, just check them our here.
Remember, don't skip furniture prepping. Don't end up in the furniture BAD place.
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