Many of us own great furnishings with good structures which have awful finishes as they wear out after a certain period of time. Fortunately, there are ways for you to refinish old pieces of wooden furniture to give them the facelift that they need. You no longer have to deal with worn out furniture pieces as you can make the furnishings of your home look as good as new again.
If you have old but valuable pieces of furniture, then you might want to leave them in their present condition. You shouldn’t do any refinishing on these pieces as antique furnishings are more valuable if they are left untouched and unaltered. If you insist on refinishing antique handyman, then we suggest you hire professionals instead of doing the process on your own. For furniture that you won’t mind losing some value, a DIY refinishing would be an excellent solution.
We have prepared some tips below on how you can achieve a successful DIY refinishing for your old wooden handyman services:
– Before you begin a refinishing job, buy a testing kit for lead. If your furniture contains lead, preserve its original state for health reasons.
– To remove old finishes, use a stripping solution. Apply your purchased stripping solution using a paint brush. It’s not necessary to use excessive amounts but you also need to make sure your entire furniture is covered. A stripping solution usually dries up quickly so work in one area at a time. Wrap your furniture with a plastic sheet or aluminum foil in order to counteract the process of drying. Then, allow the artifact to set for 24 hours.
– Don’t remove the plastic or foil at once but only in the area where you’ll do the scraping. Use a paint scraper when you remove the stripper. Do so by following the wood’s grain. It’s important to not dig into the furniture with the scraper so you can avoid gouging.
– When the stripper is completely removed, wipe the artifact using acetone and a soft cloth. If there are still areas that have paint on them, pour acetone directly on each spot. Let it set for a couple of minutes. Then, scrape away the paint.
– Wipe your wooden furniture with acetone for the second time. Wipe using a clean cloth, so any residue will be taken out.
– An antique piece of house repairs that has no bruises is surely a treasure. However, in reality, antiques do have gouges, marks or holes. To repair unsightly markings, use a wood filler. Just apply a rather small amount of the filler. Smoothen the filler out using a clean scraper. Before you sand the wood, allow the filler to dry for at least 24 hrs.
– Make sure the wood filler that you buy is unshrinkable, can be painted, and is stainable.
– After 24 hours, the filler will be completely dry. You can now move on to smoothing the entire piece down using a sanding block. Remember that you shouldn’t apply heavy pressure during this process.
– When sanding, make sure you have a mask on. Also, do this in an area that’s well-ventilated.