Magazine wood working

Showing posts with label must. Show all posts

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Must Have Supplies for Prepping Furniture for Painting

(Just some things...being "tweaked & styled" for upcoming fair.)

This week I was back to work finishing up two furniture pieces for a booth I have at my sons school fair. I am taking these pieces, as well as, an assortment of mirrors, signs and smaller items. I will let you know how this event goes. I have never had a booth at a fair before!

Because this week and last week has been filled with prepping and painting furniture.

I thought I would give a quick run down of

the items everyone should have on hand to get old furniture ready for painting.

Nothing earth shattering here,

but if you prep your furniture correctly, things will be off to a good start.

Lay down Rosin Paper - Now everyone needs to have a roll of this! It is available at all home improvement stores and painting stores. I cut a large piece to lay under the furniture I am working on. It lays flat and doesnt bunch like a drop cloth. When I am finished, usually the paper is not ruined with paint, so I just fold it, take it outside, shake any dust off and save it to reuse. It is easy to store unlike dirty and bulky drop cloths. I also use it to wrap signs I ship for my business and I use it to wrap gifts. Best bargain anywhere.
Put on gloves - I always keep a box of latex or latex free gloves on hand to protect my hands from paint and chemicals.
Lightly clean furniture up with TSP. Keep a box of this on hand too. It helps remove any residues on furniture so paint will better adhere.
Now, fill any nicks, or knob holes if you are changing the knob placement, with wood filler. This Elmers product gives a strong repair.
Once the wood fill is dry, sand it down, as well as, give the whole piece a light sanding, following the grain of the wood. This will give the piece a little extra tooth for the paint to grab. I also follow sanding with another wipe down with the TSP cleaner to remove sanding particles.
When any wetness from the cleaner is dry, give your piece a final wipe down with a tack cloth to remove any small lint or dust remaining. Again, this stuff is the best, so always keep some on hand. I always use this product before top coating furniture with waxes or polyurethane too.

Find beauty in your day!

Debbie

Monday, February 10, 2014

There must be something in the water

Coincidence?

I recently volunteered on my sons Grade 2 class visit to the ROM and a funny thing happened.
The ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) is a spectacular way to spend a day if you’re ever in Toronto. The big-draw no doubt are the dinosaur displays but for some reason, on this day, the group I had wanted to keep moving past and we ended up making our way through areas I had never been before. When I first moved back to Toronto, a family membership to the ROM was a must and it quickly paid for itself during that first year. I thought I had seen pretty much all there was to see but on this trip, while trying to keep up with three 7 year old boys, I discovered a new wing full of antique furniture.
The boys and I shared a common interest and our pace slowed as we walked through the seemingly endless galleries of hand crafted furniture. How did I miss this? Maybe it was new? Starting with ancient forms and Gothic displays we worked our way through history and gazed at literally hundreds of examples of furniture from every imaginable era. Nelson, kept telling his group “This is what my Daddy does.“ That was worth the price of admission right there! ; )
As we worked our way through the displays I was keeping one eye on the boys and one eye on the pieces so I really didn’t have time to stop and read the information offered for every one. I was more worried about loosing one of my group members and the ROM is a pretty big place. Anyhow, short story longer…I was making my way through and while lots of pieces were interesting, nothing really jumped out at me until I spied this small book shelf. Nothing too fancy but well made with some interesting inlay on top.

As someone who is always sketching furniture ideas I often ask myself what it was that drew me to the piece in the first place. Why did it catch my eye?
I was drawn to this piece more so than any other we had seen. What was it that captured my attention?
Was it the overall proportions?
Was it the wood species?

Was it the two drawers placed at the bottom?
Perhaps it was the inlay work?
I snapped a couple of quick pics with the ‘ol iPhone…

I’ve been designing some inlay and string work on a couple of the pieces in my new book and absolutely loved the style on this piece. It’s funny, out of all the pieces in the galleries made by wood workers from all over the world, through all the ages of furniture making it was this one that caught my eye.
I wondered where it could have come from and took a moment to actually stop and read the information card.

Halifax, Nova Scotia! What a small world it is… go figure eh?
There must be something in the water.