Lets talk topcoats for furniture

Let's talk about the different types of topcoats to apply for protecting refinished furniture. I can only share my experience with the topcoats that I have previously used in the past.

After painting or staining furniture, it should have a protective topcoat finish applied. There are so many different kinds of topcoats, but I'm going to break them down and share my experience.

Wax - its easy to apply, basically just wipe on and buff away the excessive. It provides a flat finish and is used a lot over chalk paint. The advantage to wax is that it can be applied with a brush or cloth and does not need to be sprayed, meaning anyone can do it. If not applied correctly the finish can look streaky though. The downfall is that wax is not as durable as other topcoats, and needs to be re-applied frequently. This is best applied to very distressed pieces since the furniture is already distressed and adding more wear would not be an issue. It offers a light protection from scratches and water. I do not want my clients to have a lot of upkeep with their furniture, so I do not use wax as a topcoat.

Hemp Oil - also easy to apply with a cloth or brush, can be used over paint or used to revive old wood finishes. This finish is food safe and can be used in the kitchen. This is not maintenance free however, and requires a light coat every other year. I love hemp oil for cutting boards or light use furniture pieces, but I don't want clients to have to do a lot of work after taking home their furniture.

General Finishes High Performance Top Coat - can be brushed or sprayed, very versatile. This product was voted as the hardest, most durable consumer polyurethane topcoat. Its a popular sealer, I like that it is water based but can be applied over water-based or oil-based finishes. High Performance Top Coat comes in a variety of sheens, from flat to gloss. I prefer to use water based products while spraying and love the smooth finish that this provides. This is my default topcoat that I use for furniture refinishing. After 28 days of curing this product dries very hard, and will stand up to a lot of use. While it isn't waterproof, it is water resistant and provides very good protection.

General Finishes Conversion Varnish - this is the top of the line for General Finishes. It's a post catalyzed high solids, two component urethane formatted for professionals who need the highest level of durability and chemical resistance. I have used this when a client requires the most durable product and wants restaurant grade finishing. This is recommended for commercial applications or extremely high-wear surfaces such as countertops and bar tops. I have used this product on my own dining room table and have never had any issue with the finish. Because it requires a catalyst and needs to be used a few hours within mixing, there is an uncharge for the extra protection and because there is usually leftover product that cannot be reused. The conversion varnish is meant for spraying.

As with all furniture, the finishes are meant to withstand some wear and tear. Just like finishes you find in big box furniture stores, if a child drags a metal touch across it, there will be a scratch. Or if you leave a wet glass on the surface for a long period of time, it will leave a ring. At Flipping Unbelievable, we use high quality products to make our furniture as durable as possible, but painted furniture does require some special care. Its not my intent to sell you additional topcoats so that you have to reapply within the next couple of years so I select topcoats that are meant to last.

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Adjustable Drawer Pulls

Have you ever come across a piece of furniture that had center to center hole measurements that are not a standard size? In case you were wondering, standard size is typically 3 inches.

In most cases when this happens, I typically fill in the holes and drill new holes, but that option really works best for when a piece is being painted.

A cringe worthy solution is when the drawer pull is swapped out for two knobs instead, like this:

Please don't ever do that. It looks horrible.

So what is another option?
Drawer pulls with adjustable center holes!!!

Okay let me back up for a minute.

I have been looking for a sofa table for awhile. I was being picky though, I needed the correct height and length, and for the size I wanted these pieces were are to come by.

Until I found this on Facebook Marketplace:

I realize that this was poorly painted by someone else, but I was up for the challenge. Lucky for me, the person who had previously painted it did not bother to properly prep, and a lot of the paint was just chipping right off.

I don't have an exact number, but my guess is that it probably took about 40 hours to completely strip all the nasty paint and finish off. After all of that work, I couldn't bring myself to paint or stain it.

The hardware wasn't my style. I wanted something a little more modern. After a lot of searching though, I couldn't find any hardware that was 3 and 5/8" to fit the existing holes. This was not a standard size.

Until I stumbled across these pulls from Home Depot:

I had to order them online but they showed up pretty quickly. They came with directions and were so easy to install, I didn't even need any additional tools besides what they supplied.

There were a few different sizes to select, based on the size of the holes. Meaning if the holes were spaced further than 4 inches apart, a wider pull would be required.

All you need to do is place the screws in the holes with the bolt part facing the outside, add the washer and nut on the inside loosely tightened, and then slide the pull over the bolt part on the outside. Use the wing nut included to tighten completely. Easy as that! I do have a video tutorial explaining this on my Instagram highlight stories.

I'm so happy to have found this option. I'm sure I will be using these in the future, I love the look of them and how easy they are to install.

Here it is all finished. What do you think? Was it worth all the effort?

Don't forget to follow me on Facebook and Instagram for even more inspiration!

Master Bedroom Remodel

We have lived in our home for 5 years now, and the master suite remodel was last on our list of updates. Here is what my bedroom looked like just after we moved in:

For some reason we thought painting the walls a dark chocolate brown would camouflage the honey oak woodwork. We were wrong.

Like most of our remodel projects, we start off by hiring an Interior Designer. See my post here on why this is an important step!

Most of the time I know what I like and hire an Interior Designer to confirm my decisions or tell me I'm way off base. For my bedroom walls though, I really had no idea what color I wanted to paint them I just knew I no longer wanted the brown color that they currently were. We went through the master bathroom design first and I mentioned that I wanted a blue color for the cabinets. When we got to the bedroom walls I admitted I had no idea what color I wanted them but wasn't opposed to color. She suggested painting the bedroom walls the same color as the bathroom cabinets as it will tie the rooms together. BRILLIANT! Its the small details that make a space, and these details are what designers are trained to do.

Picking the trim color was easy, I went with the color that was in the rest of the home. In the past I have brushed the paint on the trim for the windows. It was a tedious task that took forever, with 2 coats for primer and 3 coats for paint. This time I decided to spray the window trim, as I had 6 larger windows that needed to be painted. It took hours of taping and covering the windows, but just minutes to spray the primer and paint on and the finish was perfect, so it was well worth it.

We planned to get new flooring since I am not a fan of carpet, but it had been years since we did the rest of the flooring in the home and the flooring we had before was no longer available. Our Interior Designer recommended running the flooring the opposite way of the adjoining flooring in order to make a more obvious transition. She also agreed with my vision of a lighter wood looking floor so that was good!

I removed all of the trim and carpeting myself. This allowed me extra time to paint the trim before the flooring was installed. I planned to spray all of the trim, but had to prep everything first by cleaning and sanding. I made sure to label every piece of trim that was removed to make sure it was easy to put it back in its correct place!

The most challenging part of the bedroom remodel was the ceiling. There are certain design elements that I don't like, without any particular reason at all. Tray ceilings in the master bedroom are on that list. Now I know it is not reasonable to have the tray ceiling removed, so instead I decided to make it look more visually interesting by adding shiplap. My plan was to simply locate the roof trusts and run the shiplap the opposite way in order to secure the planks. After a lot of attempts with the stud finder, I realized that the roof trusts weren't as easy to locate as I had thought. I called my uncle who is an expert in roof trusts and over the phone he was able to walk me through the trust design for the roof of my house, and I realized it was not all running one way. Here is the collaboration picture I drew with the help of my uncle. Have I mentioned I started my college journey studying Architecture? I didn't finish with that degree, and this picture might help you understand why..

So, after all of that, I decided that I would do the best I could with nailing the planks into the truss but also used a generous amount of Liquid Nails on each plank before nailing. I also used my jigsaw to cute a hole in the middle for the new ceiling fan, and then my miter saw to frame the edges of the shiplap for a nice clean look. Then went through and patched and painted every single nail hole. WORTH IT THOUGH. This ceiling is the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up and I'm so happy with how it turned out. Ceilings are getting more attention lately, I have noticed that builders are giving architectural design to ceilings and I love the concept. It draws the eye up in the room.

New bedding, a new rug, a new ceiling fan, new flooring, painted walls, painted windows and trim, shiplap planked ceiling and the room is complete! Here are a few before and after pictures for reference:

 So tell me, what do you think of this shiplap planked tray ceiling and bedroom update?

Want to see more of my refinishing? Check out Instagram and Facebook.

Top Transformations for Furniture

Some of the best transformations don't just come from paint, but when a piece is repurposed.

 This blog post is dedicated to a few of my favorite furniture transformations.

Lets start with this door. I picked it up at my local Habitat for Humanity Restore. It was less than $20. With my saw, some pocket screws and a new piece of wood for the seat, I made a unique bench out of the door.

 Before:

 

After:

Looks completely different right? This one was a keeper, it is currently in my own foyer.

One of the first major transformations I ever did was to convert an old radio into a bar cabinet. This was a big undertaking, even though some of the radio components were already removed, I had to remove the rest of the components, remove the gingham fabric, added a drawer, added a backing (copper tile look), added wine glass holders, and added a wine bottle holder (which can be removed if needed). Check out the difference:
Before:

After:

This one even won me an award in a General Finishes contest a few years ago. I have to admit it might be one of my favorites.

The next transformation I want to share is one that I recently finished. It involved a White Elephant gift exchange with another local furniture artist that I teamed up with. We each gifted each other a piece of furniture that would be considered ugly or dated. She gave me a coffee table to refinish. I decided it was better suited as an upholstered bench, so I removed the railings and top drawer, then added foam, batting and new fabric onto a piece of wood which I screwed onto the bench. But that's not all, I decided to also use the drawer that came with it as well and make another piece. I added a bottom to it since the old bottom was the coffee table part, then paired the piece with 4 hairpin legs to give it some height, and finished it off with card catalog hardware. It became a cute and modern end table!

Both of those items went home with the same person, I'm glad they will continue to live in the same home.


One of my clients wanted me to refinish a hutch for her, but she only wanted to use the bottom part and wanted to get rid of the top, so she gave it to me for free. It was a solid piece of wood, so I didn't want it going to the dumpster. Instead I added wood to the top and bottom, added wood to the doors (removed the glass) and added feet. It became a buffet!
Before:

After:

The last transformation I want to talk about is what was once an old desk. My husband was delivering a piece of furniture and he found this "beauty" sitting on the curb, so grabbed it for me. Its an old typewriter desk, but I didn't like the middle section as there was no longer a need for it. Instead, I cut the middle section out, and added a new side panel to each piece. One of the bottom pieces of trim was missing so I just replaced both.
Before:

After:

Now I know that turning a desk/vanity into two nightstands is not a new concept, but this project was new to me and I love how they turned out!

Check out my Instagram or Facebook page as I continue my journey of transforming furniture and cabinetry!

Convert a Recessed Light into Pendant Light

When I first started our initial remodel project, my Interior Designer recommended that I switch out our recessed lights to pendant lights. Before calling an electrician to change the wiring, I decided to research and see if there were other options available. I'm glad I did! It turns out its very easy and quick to do, each light takes less than 15 minutes.

Here's how:

Home Depot sells conversion kits that makes the process really easy. The one I found wasn't in my local store so I had to order it and it arrived in less than a week. This is the one I got:

The kit contains everything you need and doesn't require any tools, which makes it really easy! First you unscrew the light bulb from the recessed light. Yes I know I got paint on the cover of my light, but it doesn't matter since it will be covered up at the end.

Then adapter part of the pendant light goes where the light bulb used to be. Before inserting the adapter though, you may want to adjust the length of the cord for the pendant light. You can always change it later but its easier to do it beforehand.

 Now the pendant light should be in, but you will need to tighten the cover plate. This will conceal the fact that it was ever a recessed light! Make sure the nut is loosened, then slide the plate up to the top and tighten the nut. Make sure not to over tighten as it could break the plastic piece.

The only thing left to do is add the shade and light bulb. Told you it was easy!

After a few days, the cord should straighten out on its own if there are any kinks in it. Also, if you decide you ever want to go back to a recessed light, it can switch back just as easily!

I love how it adds texture and draws the eye up in the room.

Do you have a recessed light that you are considering updating to a pendant? Its so easy to do I hope after reading this you attempt it on your own!

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What to look for when buying REFINISHED furniture

I get it. Its tempting to try your hand at painting furniture. There is nothing wrong with that.

I'm here to explain the difference between purchasing refinished furniture from a hobbyist versus a professional.

When it comes to refinished furniture, I can be very picky. I have my own style that I tend to stay with but can appreciate other styles as well if done correctly. How can you tell if something is refinished correctly? Here is a checklist that can help you decide:

• Check the drawers - are they dovetail? This is usually a good indication if the piece is good quality. To me though, if the drawers aren't dovetailed it isn't a deal breaker, if the piece seems solid otherwise I still consider it a worthy purchase. Also, check to make sure the drawers have a clean paint line. Sometimes furniture artists get sloppy and over spray or brush paint on the sides of the drawers instead of taping them off to protect them.
• Are there brush strokes or does it have a professional sprayed finish? If there are brush strokes, is the piece meant to have the streaky textured look or is it supposed to be a smooth finish?
• Are there paint globs or drips? This would indicate a sloppy paint job.
• Was the piece cleaned and sanded before it was painted? Good adhesion starts with proper prep work, which means cleaning and sanding the piece before it is painted (or stripping existing paint if it was previously painted).
• Was the hardware removed before it was painted? Or was it left on and just painted over? Typically a true professional will take the extra steps to remove the hardware so that it doesn't get painted with the rest of the piece.
• Ask what kind of paint was used. Was it a type of paint meant for walls (latex) or was it an actual furniture paint meant for wood?
• Do the drawers slide easily and do they sit in the correct place or do they push too far in or get stuck? Small details like this is what makes a refinisher an expert.
• Was the piece waxed and is it high traffic? This would be a warning sign that the paint job will not last. Wax should never be used for a high traffic piece and also wax needs to be applied every couple of years, so know that if you plan to keep the piece for a long time it will need upkeep.
• Lift it - if it is EXTREMELY light or EXTREMELY heavy chances are that it could be cheaply made.

A seasoned furniture refinisher has made a lot of mistakes. Enough to know what they like and what they don't, what works and what doesn't. We learn best from mistakes though. Professionals know what furniture is the best candidate for refinishing and won't waste time on pieces that aren't quality.

Do you have anything to add if you are a professional furniture refinisher?

Also, feel free to follow me on Instagram and Facebook, I will occasionally post my process on refinishing in my stories and posts!

Update: How has the peel and stick tiles held up?

It has been 7 months since I remodeled the bathroom. If you don't remember what it looked like before, check out this post.


Before installing the peel and stick floor tiles, I was curious as to how it would hold up. So I thought I would share with others my own experience with them. A few things to note with this bathroom - it is our basement bathroom, but don't let that fool you. This space gets used like any other bathroom in our home. The floor has not received any sort of special treatment so this is a real life scenario. This bathroom is home to the cat litterbox so the flooring does take some abuse, and it also serves as the main bathroom next to my husband's office, which sees some traffic.


The result? Still looks as good as the day it was installed! I have not seen any ripped tiles or signs of wear. There is one tile that has started peeling up, but I will mention that this was likely to victim of user error. When I first installed the tiles, I had a bad habit of starting to apply to sticker and then deciding it wasn't perfectly straight and peeled it back up before it was fully pressed down to start over. This tile in particular was repositioned more than once, and I believe this corner is the spot that I lifted in order to reposition.

Overall I'm happy with the outcome. I would definitely do it all over again if needed. I like that the solution is not permanent so that if I change my mind I can remove everything.


One more thing - I have not excessively washed this flooring. Meaning it has been swept and spot cleaned with a damp rag, but I haven't used a wet mop on the entire floor. I will admit that within the first week of installing the floor my son peed all over it, which I cleaned up right away, but I was pleasantly surprised that none of those stickers had any issues.


Would you try using a peel and stick floor tiles or just go with the real deal?


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