Photo by: Kristin Roach
At our church’s last rummage sale, we found a wonderful twin bed and frame for $10. It was the perfect size and design for her bedroom, but the frame itself wasn’t in the greatest of shape and the previous owners had painted it blue for their son. There were a number of dents and dings in the headboard and places where the paint had either rubbed or peeled away.
After working down all the surfaces with a heavy-grit sandpaper, the original beauty of the headboard began to shine through again. I was able to work out most of the problem areas and clean up a few of the scars of this furniture’s eventful life with a little elbow grease, then I followed it up with a fine-grit paper to leave a nice, smooth surface.
I invested about an hour to work the headboard back into shape and it really made a difference. Most of the blue was gone and the piece looked refreshed – almost as if it was happy that someone was putting in the effort to make it beautiful again.
Once the sanding was complete and I wiped down the wood, it was ready to accept the paint. To speed the project and eliminate some of the difficulty of brushing paint into tough corners, I opted to coat it with a quality spray paint.
Working with spray paint takes a decent amount of patience and a steady hand, otherwise the paint job will come out poorly. You have to take short, even strokes and never let your hand stop in one place for any amount of time or you’ll end up with drips. And if you’re working outside, you have to constantly fight the wind so your paint will go on its intended target instead of the neighbor’s car.
But after two coats of white satin enamel spray paint, the headboard looks almost brand new. It how has a paint job that will last and it will fit in nicely with its new home.
So, for less than $20, my daughter had a complete bed, frame, and headboard that matches her new room that would have cost over $100 if I bought it new. If you’re willing to put in the effort of finding quality furniture pieces and then refinishing them with love, you can save a tremendous amount of money and fill your house with found and renewed furniture that will last for years.
Featured in the Festival of Frugality – The Veteran’s Day Edition hosted at One a Quest To Be Debt Free.
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I love giving new life to old furniture. As you said – sometimes it almost feels as if the piece itself is happy about being loved again. I also value those pieces more because I put the work into them.
I’ve not done it nearly as often as I would like. Too often, we’ve just purchased some cheap particle board “furniture” that isn’t designed to last. Now, I’d rather take pride in the piece because real wood furniture can last for generations.
Very cool.
The neat thing about buying older furniture, is it’s always *so* much more well made than the modern get-it-in-a-box-and-assemble-it-yourself stuff. I wonder what it was like to live in the pre-plywood days, heh.