HIRED! OUR FIRST CUSTOM REFINISHING JOB.

Friday, April 19, 2013

If you've followed our blog for very long you know I love to paint - furniture, walls, signs...whatever I'll paint it.  A couple of years ago we started giving old furniture a fresh look and selling them locally. 

For about the last year we've had several ask us to do custom work on pieces they already owned.  I've said no! LOL  I was just too afraid of my vision and the client's vision not coming together in the end.  However, because of some of you I finally said yes!  

Here's how our first "real" job went down.  First off let me just say that someone else had previously made over this piece.  I was asked to "enhance" it.

Here's a before/after then I'll show you all we did to this dresser turned entertainment center.





Here are a few more BEFORE closeups.




I've showed you all these before pictures so you can see what we had to work with.  We started out by completely sanding off most of the previous paint job to get a good smooth surface to work with.  If there are deep scratches in the wood (sanding against the grain) then all those scratch marks are enhanced ten fold when you glaze.  


Still sanding...


After a good dusting and wiping clean, a couple coats of paint and it was time to fill all those holes & gaps.



Once it dried we drilled the hole in the back for the component wires and gave it another sanding, wiped clean, another coat of paint and let it dry overnight.

The next day we started glazing and glazing until it looked just right.  After the glaze dried we sealed it.  We gave it two coats of a quality  crystal clear sealer and let it dry another 24 hours.

All that was left to do was add the hardware back.  We actually filled most of the hardware holes and re-drilled them.  For whatever reason they were off and didn't line up perfectly.  Eddie & I are OCD and couldn't leave it like that! LOL  Plus, there was one handle that was completely black and didn't have the same distressing as the others so Eddie took a little steel wool too it and after just a tiny bit of distressing the handle looked just like the others.  Now we just needed to take a few photo's of our first refinishing job for our scrapbook.







I hope Heidi was happy with the outcome.  We worked on it just like we would've if it were going in our own home plus I realized doing someone else's furniture isn't so bad.  It was actually better since I knew someone was coming to pick it up as soon as we were done!

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9 comments:

  1. I'm always hesitant to do custom work as well. I far prefer to just make what I want to make and hope someone loves it and buys it. That entertainment center looks wonderful now - I'm sure they'll love it!

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  2. Pretty. I think you did a very nice job enhancing it instead of changing it (like the customer requested). My boyfriend refinishes furniture all of the time and I am working on starting to do it myself (I usually do small, fun, crafty things and haven't had room to play with furniture too much yet), so the whole process looks just like my garage usually looks. haha

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  3. Wow! Someone really didn't know what they were doing on the "before", did they! You made it lovely (and loveable!) Great job.
    Fran

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  4. Congrats on your first job, Clydia!!! What an amazing job! Such great work!! Can't believe that you didn't want to do it before...lol!!!

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  5. Clydia, this looks beautiful! I'm sure the client is beyond thrilled with the final result and thanks so much for sharing. Have a great weekend! ~Cindy@litlemisscelebration.com

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  6. How exciting! I know custom work can be a bit more stressful, I'm new to it too, but it has been worth it to know the piece is sold already and to get to work closely with clients. There is nothing like seeing a great reaction from happy customers ;) Beautiful makeover on this piece!

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  7. It's lovely. I would be stressed a bit too but you did so well. Olive@OliveOut

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  8. Love it!! And congrats on going outside your box!! I love painting for other people!! It's absolutely rewarding for someone else to love your work!!

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  9. Great job! Wow that "before" was pretty bad! You guys really made it something stunning though.

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