Painted Pine Furniture With A Lacquered Top
Painted pine furniture:Most of my jobs come via the website, and in this article I explain how I painted pine furniture with a lacquered top. Homeowners in Lancashire and Cheshire tend not to know a specialist kitchen and furniture painter in their area, so they usually search online and like what they see in my case studies.
Also, hosting dinner parties over the years it had a lot of good memories attached to it. Far too precious to throw away, so they decided to have a go at sanding out the top. All did not go well with not having the right sanders!
Sadly it proved too much for them, so Miles looked on the web and found that I’ve successfully refurbished pine furniture similar to his.
They sent pictures of the table and chairs. They wanted the top re-lacquered and table legs painted, also the chairs to be painted white. I could see the tabletop had been sanded, but not in too much detail. I sent a quote back, and they accepted.
When I went to collect, it was apparent that the photos hadn’t really done justice to the damage on the table top. Not to worry.
- This is how it looked before
Dismantling the furniture, I realised the weight of it – solid pine and well made. The transformation would make all the effort worthwhile.
In the workshop
I started with the top, which needed some major sanding. My machine of choice is the Mirka Ceros with 80 grit.
After getting the sanding marks out I dropped down through the grits, finally using 240 grit. With dust extraction, it is a clean operation and soon enough, the table top was clean of dust, no dust in the air, all ready for its first coat of Sayerlack waterborne self sealer for interior wood.
Leaving the lacquer to tack off, I could prep the table legs the same as the chairs. Using Mirka Mirlon pads and a final clean down with meths.
Painting
As we only had 2 1/2 days to turn it around, I had plumbed for shellac based Isofix primer then 2 coats of oil based Empire for a quick drying, diamond hard finish.
The following day it was all hands to the deck. With 2 of us on the chairs, the painting was straightforward enough, as we could each check for runs and misses, which is easy done on any sort of spindle. One coat one day, the topcoat the next.
- painted pine furniure
- painted pine furniture
Table top piece de resistance
The top needed 3 more coats (4 coats in total of 40% sheen clear lacquer) dropping down through the grades of sanding paper. Eventually finishing with 1000 grade for the last coat.
- painted pine furniture
The secret to achieving a spray like finish with Sayerlack
– slightly dilute your final coat with water
– using a hi density foam roller, apply the lacquer then lay off the surface in one sweeping motion
– walk away and it will lie flat just like a sprayed finish.
I would like to thank Miles for trusting me with their treasured furniture & hope they have many more happy dinner parties. Breathing life back into furniture and giving it a new look, that’s what my craft’s all about.
