In my previous post Giving Old Pieces New Life I mentioned that I inherited a few pieces of furniture from my Granparents houses. One of those pieces was a 1950’s Secretary. This one took a lot more work than anticipated, due to 65 years of smoke build-up.
A few lessons learned from this project:
Scrub-a-dub, dub…
A good grease cutting dish soap and hot water is your first step. Give the piece a good scrub. You may need to go over it a couple times to remove the build-up.
Seel it in!
You way find if you just go over your piece with paint after the first step, that you will get a yellow tinge coming through….yup that’s the nicotine. This happened to us. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much your scrub! I suggest you save yourself some time and use a Smoke Cover Primer first. This will seel in all that yellow yuckiness and smell.
Let’s Spray!
The best purchase you can make if you are going to be redoing any kind of furniture is a paint sprayer and a spray tent. The sprayer saves so much time and ensures you get a nice smooth finish. The spray tent will definitely save whatever space your are spraying in. I assure you, the paint will go everywhere! A tent is tough when you are working on a larger piece as its sometimes tough to get the right angles but in the end saved a lot of mess!
Extra Prep
When you are taping off any areas you do not want painted, make sure everything is very secure. The sprayer is quite strong and will get paint in every crack and crevice….I learned the hard way.
Remaining Stink
Any unpainted surfaces will still be stinky (inside drawers and desk area). Baking soda works wonders. Splinkle it all over, leave it for a few days and vacuum it up. It is shocking how well it works.
Jackie Williams 