Painting New Furniture....pre or post assembly?

[BKHam]

i know pinterest and the internets are full of people taking really nice furniture and painting over it. those are crimes but that is not what i'm doing. i built this piece to be painted out of B-grade maple. its maple with the blue and green streaks in it. hardwood but not pretty wood. it was also a great deal.

my painting of raw wood furniture is limited. I've done some milk paint on some modern furniture and that went okay. i say modern because it didn't have a lot of corners, or moldings, or nooks, really straight unadorned case sides and flat drawer fronts. it was pretty easy to paint.

what i'm working on is a frame and panel cabinet that will be painted. Think...the bottom section of a kitchen hutch. i plan on, at minimum pre-painting the tongues of the panels and the edges of the frames. when you pros do painted cabinets, do you go ahead and paint the entire panel? then i guess you would tape off the entire panel to prevent paint from bonding the frame to panel?

i'm used to prefinishing parts so i've had the thought of pre-painting the frames before glue up. do you pros assemble or pre-paint the frames?

what about a topcoat? pre-finish or post-assembly?

 

[Phil S]

I would use a colored lacquer and a spray system. You can get any color and any sheen in a pre-cat lacquer or a water-borne product. The only part I would pre-paint would be the door panel edges - you can get a sealer/primer tinted to match your final color. I like to use vinyl sealer from Mohawk

 

[cstandi1]

It completely depends on the project. I will sometimes paint inside surfaces before assembly, just to make it easier especially if it has some deeper spaces that are difficult to spray. I will also pre-finish panels in frame and panel assembly so unfinished wood doesn't show with wood movement.

I don't understand the hatred for repainting old furniture. There is obviously a line, I'm not going to repaint a 150 year old piece of furniture. But I did repaint my wife's grandmas bedrooms set from the 1940s. It was typical factory make furniture and not in the least bit monetarily valuable. Once stripped it was obviously made out of mismatched boards (poplar?) and just didn't look very good in general. My wife wanted it painted as opposed to the old dark lacquer that was on there any way. She choose an off white/cream color and I think it came out pretty nice.

 

[BKHam]

i agree there is a line with repainting which. i have quite a few friends that have really gotten into the diy, weathered look, painting approach. they've painted over some crap furniture but also some nice stuff as well. i don't think they care about the origin, they paint it to suit today's look.

when you painted inside and the panels, were you using a lacquer or a paint?

 

[cstandi1]

I have pre-finished using paint, shellac, stains, etc. I have never used lacquer for anything yet. If it is a film, paint, or oil finish I tape of any glue surfaces such as tenons. It might add some set up time to the finishing process but I find it easier to finish lots of smaller flat pieces then trying to get into corners, crevices, and cubbies on an assembled piece. The caveat here is that I am not great at spraying and tend to end up to much sprayed on if I try to do recesses or cubbies. Phil or others may have some advice to make it easier via spraying.

The one place I will always pre-finish is frame and panel type situations.

 

[Phil S]

i agree there is a line with repainting which. i have quite a few friends that have really gotten into the diy, weathered look, painting approach. they've painted over some crap furniture but also some nice stuff as well. i don't think they care about the origin, they paint it to suit today's look.

when you painted inside and the panels, were you using a lacquer or a paint?

I always spray either shellac or lacquer (either solvent-based or water borne) To quickly spray small parts or panel edges that are going to be difficult when assembled, I use a small detail LVLP spray gun. However recently I bought a Neo for Iwata TRN2 air brush that works extremely well for small jobs and cleans up in seconds