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Reader’s question

"I have antique brown furniture in my living room. I am on a low budget to replace the old furniture, but I would like to change the look of the furniture somehow. What should I do? There are chest of drawers, cupboards etc."

Our recommendations

There are several ways to makeover your old wood furniture and give it a new look.

Paint the furniture different color

You can upgrade the wooden furniture with a different stain or paint selection e.g. vivid, modern colors, as red, or blue, which match with the rest colors of the place.

Some familiarity with painting process is necessary.

Steps

Choose the paint color, ensuring that the paint is suitable for wood.

In well-ventilated room sand the furniture with a medium 100-grit sandpaper until the old varnish is removed and wipe off any dust.

Apply a coat of primer and when it is dry, apply a coat of paint. Allow to dry for 2 hours, and then apply a second coat.

Let the paint dry for 24 hours and the furniture is ready for use.

Use painting stencils

If you like to add more decorative effects, you can stencil onto your piece of furniture patterns of your choice and paint them a different color.

An easier solution is to create stripes with a second color.

Decorating with stickers

A very popular way that offers a wide range of options to transform an old piece of furniture.

In this case you can keep the existing color and the sticker gives a new look to the piece of furniture.

This technique is very simple and fast to apply and requires no special knowledge and skills.

Hand Painting

If you have a talent in painting, you can paint your favorite themes, flowers, landscapes etc and enjoy seeing the transformation of your furniture.

Wallpaper application

Wallpapers are a decorating idea not only for the walls, but also for the furniture. The old wooden furniture comes alive and gets a new appearance.