Repainting Old Furniture

Walking around Goodwill I found these really cool end tables (they’re from 1967. Throwback!). I loved them! I thought “These would look great in a color! And look at all that extra storage space. BONUS!”. It also didn’t hurt that each was only $5.

I’ve pinned a lot of great tutorials for painting old furniture but turns out these end tables are made of a, well to be honest I forget the official term from it, but it’s more of a plastic wood than a real wood. Therefor most of the things I pinned were essentially useless. I did get to take some tips from it. If you’re about to repaint some furniture I suggest checking them out. How to Paint Furniture: A Beginner’s Guide. Paint Furniture Like a Pro

My inspiration: Emerald Green Decor  Paint Projects Link Party

I love love love the look of painted furniture. It’s both trendy and brings in a pop of color that’s easily changeable. Since these tables are relatively a small project and have a lot of grooves I opted to use spray paint instead of normal paint. The cans came with primer in the paint. At around $3 a can you couldn’t beat it.

Now to begin.

First, I removed the hardware. That includes the hinges and the handles. Once those were safely removed my dad sanded the top. It was his sander so he got to do the honors. We only sanded the top because it was the only part that was real wood.

After we sanded the top, we brushed off the excess dust and began to spray paint. We started with the door because that was going to be the hardest. The color came out better than i could have imagined! It took two coats of paint on each table. I only needed 2 cans of spray paint instead of the 4 I initially bought. Another win!

Next we get to restoring the handles. We thought that soaking them in ammonia like we do the stove grates may restore them. It got off a lot of dirt but ended up completely taking the finish off one of the handles. I read online that the best way to restore them is in ketchup. I soaked the three remaining handles in ketchup for 1 hour and it really brought back the shine. Unfortunately the damage was already done on the last one. We had leftover black spray paint so we just used that for the handles. It actually ties in the black from our tv and futon.