Refinishing Your Furniture — Made Simple

The refinished knobs on the back of the sofa. (Photos courtesy of Mel Nathanson, Raleigh News and Observer.)

There's no particular trick to working with furniture refinisher. Wear gloves, put down plenty of newspaper (take the piece outdoors if possible) and follow the directions on the label. Usually, that means a couple of applications with a very fine steel wool pad. Follow cleanup instructions on the product label.

Going All the Way: If you need to go the whole route and remove the finish completely, you can use a commercial product or, like Smith, work up your own mixture. She uses a home brew of paint thinner and lacquer thinner mixed equally.

Once the finish has been removed and the piece wiped clean, you'll want to sand it gently with very fine sandpaper or steel wool and remove any dust with a tack cloth. (Hint: If you don't have a tack cloth, one of the new Swiffer cloths works well.)

Apply the stain next. This is the "Oh wow!" moment when the finish is transformed. You'll either brush or rub it on, then wipe off any excess. Follow the instructions on the can; it's pretty hard to mess up this part.

The manufacturer Minwax is the big name in stains; it offers shades for every type of wood. Just be sure to wear gloves--not because the stain is toxic, but because if it gets on your hands, particularly around the fingernails or cuticles, it's there to stay.

This imposing oak bed, more than 100 years old, has been passed down through the Smith family. (Photos courtesy of Mel Nathanson, Raleigh News and Observer.)

She uses a paint brush or soft rag to apply oil stain, and between applications, she rubs the finish with a clean, soft, lint-free cloth.

I've had good results with a product called furniture refinisher (made by Formby's as well as Park's). It's gentler than stripper, and it has worked for just about every project I've taken on. One of the biggest mistakes first-timers make is using a chemical that's too harsh. I messed up an old mirror, my first project, by putting stripper on the mahogany frame when all it needed was furniture refinisher--which I subsequently used on a matching bedside table that turned out beautifully.

"My philosophy," Bruce Johnson, author of The Weekend Refinisher, says, "is that less is more."

In the old days--the '60s and the '70s--"we were too fast to strip off any old, dark finishes," says Johnson, who now plies his trade in Asheville, N.C. "We were too fast to turn furniture over to dipping tanks. The caustic chemicals are harsh on glue joints and veneer. It does more damage than good."

Johnson admits he was among the guilty but has reformed and now promotes a "safer, gentler" approach to refinishing.

"'Restore' is the word I use," Johnson says. "If we can work with rather than remove the original finish, that enhances both the value and the beauty of the piece. A piece can be over-refinished--stripped and sanded of every evidence of its age. It's as artificial as a 60-year-old person with no wrinkles."

That's why Johnson likes the refinishing solution. "It is a not a stripper," he says. "It does not contain methylene chloride. It's a blend of solvents that will gradually loosen and remove the old finish, but doesn't strip it right down to the bare wood and take away color as well."

Topping it Off: No matter which method you use, you'll need a finish coat of oil or polyurethane for protection. Tung oil and other oil finishes don't provide as much protection as polyurethane, but they do help safeguard furniture from one of its two biggest enemies: dry heat in houses in the winter (the other is prolonged exposure to sunlight).

Johnson generally uses tung oil, a classic finish that is applied with a rag and wiped off, left to dry and then repeated until the wood looks as if it could stand an assault from the family. "It's the no-brain application finish," Johnson says. "It's so simple, people feel they have left something out. The whole thing is done with rags and a few products." Besides, he says, antiques don't need the protection that wood floors need (that's why floors are polyurethaned).

Smith also prefers oil finishes for the low-luster antique quality they bestow on wood--although she has put polyurethane on furniture that's likely to be used by her grandchild during a visit.

I applied satin-finish polyurethane to my dining room table and chairs because I wanted its greater protection. A very light buffing with 0000 steel wool between each coat kept the sheen down. I also put polyurethane on the newly installed rush seating (at the suggestion of the installer). It makes the rush rock-hard, gives it some luster and makes it last longer.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)