Furniture Painting North York

Need Furniture Painting in North York?

There is a lot of good furniture in North York, most of it older than the people who own it now. Don Mills was laid out between 1952 and 1965, the developer made builders use architects trained on Bauhaus principles. Two or three generations later those pieces are still better built than anything at a big-box store, and they are sitting in basements because the finish looks tired or the colour reads as dated.

The other half of the calls come from condos. A unit along Yonge or Sheppard has no garage, no workshop and no basement, so there is nowhere to sand a dresser. Either way, painting a piece properly costs a fraction of replacing it and keeps something solid out of the landfill.

What Painting Furniture Actually Takes

Furniture is harder than a wall, and not because of the painting. A wall gets looked at. A dresser gets touched, dragged, stacked on, and opened five times a day.

It starts with sanding, and the manufacturer is specific about it. Benjamin Moore's instructions for its Advance waterborne alkyd, which is the kind of finish this work calls for, are that all surfaces be roughened by sanding with 220 grit or coarser before priming, with a light sand between coats for a smoother result, and all dust cleaned off. Glossy areas get dulled, and old glossy alkyd gets sanded before the new finish goes on. Peeling or scaling areas get feathered smooth into what is around them. Nothing goes over grease, wax or soap, which matters a lot on a kitchen or dining piece that has had forty years of polish on it.

Then the primer, and the primer depends on what the piece actually is. Solid wood and engineered wood take a different primer than MDF, thermofoil and laminate, and each of those is named separately in the data sheet rather than lumped together. A plastic veneer has to be sanded off before priming, not painted over, which is the single most common reason a home-painted laminate dresser peels at the corners within a year. Steel and iron legs and frames take a metal primer of their own.

Old furniture also brings lead. Canada did not limit lead in interior paint until 1976, so a pre-1980 piece can carry it in the lower layers, and the data sheet for the finish carries the warning itself: scraping, sanding or removing old paint can release lead dust, and lead is toxic. So we contain the work area, prep wet where we can, use a HEPA vacuum and a wet wipe-down rather than a broom, and we do not dry-sand an old dresser in the middle of your living room.

The part homeowners care about most is when they get it back. At 25C the finish is dry to touch in four to six hours and ready to recoat at 16 hours. But full hardness comes later, and the manufacturer says not to expose it to heavy abrasion or return shelves and tabletops to service for at least five to seven days. Optimum hardness and final sheen can take up to 30 days. Cooler temperatures and high humidity stretch every one of those numbers. The finish we use is also block-resistant, which means two painted faces, a drawer front against a frame, a door against a cabinet, will not glue themselves together.

Waterborne alkyds yellow less than the old oil enamels, but a slight amount of yellowing can still happen, and the effect is faster in dark or poorly ventilated spots and more visible in light colours. So a bright white piece going into a windowless room is a conversation, not an automatic yes.

Furniture work often gets bundled with a room repaint. For the rest of what we do, start at our North York painting company page, or see how we work in Bayview Village and around Don Mills.

The Furniture We Paint in North York

• Dressers, drawers and nightstands

  Drawer fronts come out, hardware comes off and gets bagged and labelled, and the carcass and the fronts get finished separately so the edges are clean. The block-resistant finish matters most here, because a drawer front sits against a frame all day and a wall-paint finish will bond the two together the first humid week.

• Tables, desks and tabletops

  Tabletops are the hardest surface on any piece because they take heat, moisture, elbows and cleaning products. They get the most prep and the longest wait. The manufacturer says not to return tabletops to service for at least five to seven days, so a dining table painted Thursday is not hosting Sunday dinner.

• Bookshelves and shelving units

  Freestanding shelves, cube units and the tall particleboard ones everyone owns. Shelves carry weight on a flat painted surface, which is exactly what soft paint fails at, so they get the same five to seven day wait before books go back on. If the unit is laminate, the veneer gets sanded and a bonding primer goes on, because paint straight onto laminate does not hold.

• Built-ins, window seats and mudroom benches

  Anything fixed to the house. Basement built-ins, a window seat, a mudroom bench, shelving in an alcove. Done in place, so we contain the space, control the dust, and use a low-VOC waterborne finish rather than something that drives you out for a week.

• Metal furniture, frames and legs

  Steel and iron bed frames, table legs, hairpin legs, metal shelving and patio furniture coming inside for the winter. Metal parts get their own primer, a metal primer rather than the wood one, because the finish will not hold on bare steel or iron without it. Mixed pieces get both, worked out part by part.

• Metallic and specialty furniture finishes

  If a flat colour is not what you want, there are metallic and hammered-metal finishes made specifically for furniture and decorative pieces, in gold, copper, bronze, gun smoke, silver and charcoal. Two thin coats, an overnight dry between them, and full cure at five to seven days. They are a real option on a single accent piece, and a bad one on something that gets heavy daily use.

Nine Things Worth Knowing Before You Paint Furniture

1. Never paint furniture with wall paint. Wall paint stays soft, so drawer fronts and doors stick to their frames. You want a finish that is block-resistant, which is a specification, not a marketing word.
2. Sand with 220 grit or coarser before priming. That is the manufacturer's instruction, and light sanding between coats is what makes the difference between smooth and almost smooth.
3. Sand laminate and plastic veneer off, not over. Plastic veneer has to come off by sanding before a bonding primer goes on. Painting straight onto it is why so many laminate pieces peel at the corners.
4. Match the primer to the material. Wood, MDF, thermofoil, laminate and steel each have their own primer in the data sheet. One primer for the whole piece is a guess.
5. Clean the grease and wax off first. Nothing bonds through forty years of furniture polish, cooking grease or soap residue. Degreasing is a separate step from sanding, and both have to happen.
6. Wait five to seven days before you load it. The manufacturer says do not return shelves or tabletops to service for at least five to seven days. Books back on day two is how people wreck a good finish.
7. Optimum hardness can take 30 days. Dry, recoatable and fully hard are three different things. Cooler temperatures and high humidity stretch all of them.
8. Take the hardware off, do not tape around it. Knobs, pulls and hinges come off, get bagged and labelled. Painting up to taped hardware always shows, and reassembly guessing is its own problem.
9. Think about yellowing before you pick bright white. Waterborne alkyds yellow far less than old oil enamels, but some can still happen, faster in dark or poorly ventilated spots and most visible in light colours.