The 5 Biggest Mistakes You Make When Painting Furniture

Improve a less-than-stellar piece with paint, patience, and my tricks. I had the oops moments; now you can learn from them.

There's no shortage of tutorials about painting furniture online. And I've used a lot of them to paint dressers, console tables, chairs, mirrors, and more. But I have found problems/issues with a lot of the tutorials—paint chips, finishes aren't smooth, and paint peels. I have had to redo several furnishings, so I decided to compile all the mistakes I've made to help you give your furnishings a makeover that will last.

Here's how to paint a piece of furniture—without making a major mistake:

1. Sand it. There are lots of tutorials out there that claim you don't need to sand. There are also lots of primers and paints promising no sanding necessary. From what I have learned, sanding is a must. Sand all surfaces with 150-grit sandpaper. (I use this orbital sander with variable speeds.) Be careful not to gouge the surface. You're just looking to rough it up a little so the primer has something to adhere to; you're not trying to strip the surface. Use 80-grit if you are sanding a furnishing with an existing varnish.

2. Remove residue. Wipe down the surface with a tack cloth to remove any residue. Do not use a paper towel. Don't speculate on whether something is a lint-free cloth. Just use the tack cloth.

DIY Chevron Wall

Okay so this is a project that I started just two weeks after we moved into our house in January of 2013. We still had many boxes to unpack and all sorts of things to organize. I how ever couldn't wait to get my DIY on. Oh look at how clean and white my walls were!

If this is a project that you have seen before and thought that it is so cute and you want it in your house then let me just warn you that this is not a project for the faint of heart. This takes time and attention to detail. Believe me it was very hard to start drawing all over my brand new walls and then tape that bad boy up.

If you don't feel intimidated and you are pretty confident in your taping abilities then feel free to make your walls look amazing! 

Here are a few tips that I would give you before you start though:

1. Invest in a high quality painters tape. You want straight lines that don't bleed and the only way to get that is with a good tape.

2. Draw on your walls using a ruler and pencil. Make sure that you have everything measured out and drawn before you start taping. You can see my rectangles on the wall. Mine were 5 inches by 10 inches. This will make it so much easier once you start taping.

3. Draw lightly! You don't want to have grove marks in your wall or dark lines that you might have to erase afterwords. Don't make more work then you need to.

I hope that these tips help you out. This was a fun project that was frustrating at times but so worth it in the end!