Refinishing Your Wooden Buffet. If you have a wooden buffet in your house, you may want to do some makeover on them. This article will teach you how to do a buffet furniture makeover. You will learn two makeover options, and that is staining or painting.
To refinish your wooden buffet, the first thing you should do is clean it and use sandpaper to do some sanding job. After that, you can proceed to use paint and stain.
Once you do the painting and staining, you can make your furniture more durable by opting for a clear top coat.
Read more on this article to learn the important steps to refinish your wooden buffet.
The First Thing You Should Do Is Removing All The Hardware
Before you begin working on your furniture piece makeover, it is highly recommended to remove all the hardware. Removing the hardware is an important prerequisite whether you decide to upgrade your hardware or not.
This is because grime and grease can be stuck behind your buffet’s drawer pulls and cause issues when you paint it. This will make the paint couldn’t adhere well.
As a result, the paint might peel off fast. That’s why you should avoid keeping the hardware on the furniture.
Degrease Cleaning Your Wooden Buffet
As the paragraph above explains, you must remove your furniture hardware to clean it. After removing the hardware, you can use a degreasing product to clean up the furniture.
Krud Cutter is a recommended product that can do the job well. Use the Krud Clutter by mixing it with warm water and adding dish soap in a small amount.
After that, take a lint-free rag or an old t-shirt that has been cut out to wipe your buffet. Do the wiping from top to bottom.
You must clean it with a little force until you see your rag or cloth turn brown. You will see how much dirt and grime has been collected for years.
You also need to clean the inside parts of your furniture, such as the cupboards and drawers. The dust is more likely to build up in those areas; thus, you should clean up all the dirt that may be there using a tack cloth.
Wipe the inside until the dust is cleaned.
Fix Damages On Buffet’s Structure
It is important to fix the damages you notice on your wooden buffet. This process can be laborious. However, it is not hard to do.
Take wood glue, a drill, and screws and analyze your wooden piece. Find any structural damage and think of the best way to repair it. You can use screws plus wood glue to hold the tabletop surface of your buffet.
You can use wood glue to fix minor issues in most cases. Sometimes, it is required to use a drill to make a hole so that you can add a screw to give it more support if necessary.
Strip Down or Sand Your Wooden Buffet’s
After the wood glue has dried and the buffet’s structure is fixed, you can proceed to the sanding and stripping processes. You can skip applying paint stripper if you wish since you are sanding a wooden buffet.
However, having a large surface area can save time sanding things down since a stripper can prevent your surface from getting super dusty.
Apply Stripper On The Buffet’s Old Finish
When you use a stripper and proceed to do some light sanding, it can provide an even stain result. Moreover, it is pretty easy to use a paint stripper.
The recommended paint stripper for a wooden buffet is Klean Strip. Apply an adequate amount of the stripper over the old paint/stain/finish.
Then leave it to sit and bubble for around 15 minutes. The stripper will remove all the old finishes and stains, thus leaving only bare wood.
Once you see the bubble formed, use a scraper to scrape up that gooey thing and put them into a waste bucket. Do this process twice to get better results.
After you have finished scraping, take steel wool with super fine grade 0000 type, then take a mineral spirit and pour it to remove the excess sticky leftover.
Use the steel wool you have prepared and pour mineral spirit into it. Use the steel wool to rub the wood. It is recommended that you wear gloves and a respirator for safety measures.
After that, take a rag to clean the surface from any debris. Wait for the mineral spirits to evaporate completely, then you can begin to sand the wood down.
Apply Sanding On The Wooden Buffet
You can sand or strip to bare wood. Thus, if you want to strip the areas you want to stain, use sandpaper with 180-220 grit level to clean it up.
You may need to begin with lower sandpaper grit if your wood needs a thorough sanding to eliminate scratches or clean up the leftover finish.
If you don’t want to use a stripper, you can start with the sanding process. You may use a mouse detail sander and a hand-held random orbital sander.
The orbital sander is suitable for large surfaces, and the mouse detail sander is good for hard corners. Now, to sand a surface before you use stain, sand it until it becomes bare wood.
If you plan to paint the surface, just lightly sand the surface to make it paintable to adhere well.
Priming Your Wooden Buffet
Most people think that priming is not so important that they think it is unnecessary to do it. However, it is helpful for the paint. It will make the paint adhere to the surface so much better. Priming is done to prepare the wood.
You can use spray primer in the oil-based form that is 100% capable of sticking to your wooden surface better than the water-based counterpart.
If you don’t do the priming job, a “bleed through” accident might happen, especially if you use colored paints with a lighter color.
Paint Your Wooden Buffet
Now, it’s time to apply paint to the wooden surface. You can use a brush to do the job. The recommended brush is a Wooster brush. Before you start, damp it with water to help the brush glide and create a smooth result.
You may use Coal Black Mineral Paint, paint it in a direction according to the wood grain, and try to make the brush strokes match the wooden grain.
Staining Your Surface
You can peel off tapes that protect the stained surface. Use a tack cloth to clean up dust so it won’t interfere with the process. You may use a stain in oil-based type or gel stain. Both options are fine.
Apply Top Coat As The Final Step
This is the final step and the most important thing you need to do. Applying a top coat to your wooden buffet is essential because without it.
Your piece will eventually have scratches up, even from your towel. That’s why skipping applying the top coat is a very bad idea.
The top coat will protect your surface from scratches and make the wooden piece durable. Thus, it will be suitable for everyday use.
You can spray the solution with water-based polyurethane and use Wagner Flexio or Homeright super finish max. For the best result, thin the water-based polyurethane with a 10% amount of water.
Another option you can try when applying water-based polyurethane is a foam applicator. Additionally, you can purchase regular oil-based poly or spray cans that can spray water-based polyurethane. Both options are great!
You should apply at least three layers of coating protection. The more protections you apply, the better it will be for your wooden buffet.
