How To Restore Furniture

It is often difficult to know how to restore furniture properly. It can be a lot of work to restore furniture, and you must know the proper steps to take to make the furniture look good again. By following these guidelines, you can have old furniture looking like new again.

Here are some items you might need to restore furniture:

• paint stripper
• mild dish washing liquid
• soft cloth
• stain or paint
• paint brush
• sand paper

1. Determine whether the furniture you wish to restore is structurally sound. Make sure there are no weak spots in the furniture. If there is and it can be repaired, have the problem fixed first. Restoring furniture is a lot of work, and it would be a waste of time if the furniture couldn't even be repaired.
2. Strip the old paint off the furniture if it is a painted piece. You can use a a chemical stripper, but make sure it can be used on the wood, metal or what the furniture is made out of first. Use an inexpensive paintbrush to apply the stripper to the furniture. You may need several applications, depending on how thick the paint is.
3. Use a paint scraper to remove the paint after the paint stripper has set on the furniture for the desired time. If any paint remains that won't come off, reapply the paint stripper and try scraping off again. It often takes several tries to restore furniture.
4. Wash furniture with mild dish washing liquid and water. This will remove any leftover residue when you restore furniture. You may need to use sand paper to sand off any stubborn paint or rough spots left on the furniture.
5. Apply a primer to furniture. After the primer is dry, you can apply paint or you can stain the furniture. It all depends on how you want your finished product to look. These are the basic steps on how to restore furniture, just remember it takes a lot of time and hard work to have a great looking piece.