We decorate furniture with our own hands

Making furniture with your own hands is only possible for real craftsmen, each of whose products is a real work of art. But sooner or later, the service life of a table, cabinet or nightstand expires: the furniture becomes unusable, loses its appearance. There are other situations: the furniture is still in good condition, but you are tired of it: you want brightness, a holiday, so that the apartment is decorated with original things, and not a dull standard cabinet, table or chest of drawers. And here for those who can and want to make things with their own hands, a wide field of activity opens up.

The Benefits of Decorating Furniture Yourself

Self-improvement and restoration of furniture at home has a number of advantages:

• you can choose the most suitable decor that meets the requirements of beauty;
• purchasing materials is much cheaper;
• there are no time limits for completing work;
• saving on purchasing new furniture.

Deciding on the design

Restoration of old furniture will inevitably entail a change in the design of the room, and here you cannot “just like that” introduce new forms into the established interior of the apartment, an unusual decoration of furniture that will stand out from the overall harmony. It is worth noting that there are design techniques that allow you to “fit” a piece of other decor into the overall picture of the room’s design.

Before you start decorating, you need to decide on the design and elements of its update. For this, you can use:

• decoupage;
• glizal;
• fabric, including tulle;
• painting;
• artificial aging using craquelure;
• stencils;
• mosaic;
• self-adhesive film;
• other methods.

Each of them has its own advantages, but what to choose is up to the home craftsman.

Decoupage of old furniture

One of the most interesting decoration options is decoupage. It allows you to decorate household items with various images, photographs, and drawings. But most often, special decoupage napkins are used for this.

The decoupage technique is not complicated, but it requires attention and accuracy, just like any other work. To decorate a product using it, you need:

• remove varnish, old paint, drawings, and pasted pictures from the furniture surface;
• clean it until it is perfectly smooth;
• prime with acrylic paint;
• dry completely;
• after this, apply PVA glue to the surface;
• carefully place the napkin or other material chosen for decoration;
• to make the furniture shine, the decoupage image and the rest of the surface can be varnished;
• dry completely.

Restoring a Wardrobe with Wallpaper

Many people will find it unacceptable to decorate old furniture with wallpaper, but this is not true. Today, the market offers a wide range of these products, made in various colors and textures, providing an opportunity for a flight of fantasy for decorating furniture with your own hands. Wallpaper can be used to update any piece of furniture, depending on this, use different materials and patterns. But the most impressive look is cabinets, a large surface of which can be decorated with wallpaper with an effective bright pattern.

Surface decoration with glaze

Some consider covering items with translucent paint, called glaze, glaze, or azure, to be a special chic when decorating. With its help, you can decorate any surface, including furniture, regardless of whether it is made of wood or glass is used in its design.

It easily "lays down" on the material, has no smell, but has many color shades. It can be applied with a roller, brush or sponge, like regular paint. The order of using the paint is as follows:

• First, you need to treat the surface: clean, remove dirt, degrease;
• then apply a primer: one or two layers on wooden furniture surfaces, four or five layers of primer on glass, which creates the effect of frosted glass.

Before use, the glizal is diluted with water in proportions corresponding to the instructions. You can create a drawing within half an hour after applying the mixture; otherwise, it will harden and it will be impossible to “draw”.

Decorating facades with acrylic paints

Using paint is one of the ways to decorate furniture. It is not just “to refresh”, as some say, but an opportunity to ennoble it and breathe new life. In this case, you can not just paint the surface with a single-color paint, but paint it with different patterns and apply any ornament. If the home craftsman has the skills of an artist, then his creative imagination will turn an ordinary cabinet or table into a work of art.

Usually acrylic paints are used for furniture decoration, they are absolutely harmless to health, bright and saturated. But you can also use single-color paint so that any element of furniture will look elegant and impressive. To do this, you can take several colors and decorate the facade in the form of multi-colored stripes of different sizes, squares, triangles, circles, ovals - this does not require much skill. And even if the figures are not quite geometrically accurate, they will look very perky.

The order of decorating with acrylic paints using templates is as follows:

• the surface of the furniture must be cleaned to a perfectly smooth state; if there are any uneven areas, sand them;
• paint and let it dry completely;
• attach the stencil and paint it in the appropriate colors;
• carefully remove it and let it dry completely;
• To make the surface of the furniture shine, it needs to be varnished.

Furniture coating with craquelure

Many DIYers use craquelure to achieve a cracking effect. It is achieved as follows:

• On the paint that has not yet dried, you need to carefully apply the crackle varnish;
• It is prepared from egg white or PVA glue; sometimes vinegar or gelatin is used.
• To achieve the most dramatic cracking effect, apply the paint twice;
• The second layer is applied immediately after the first one has dried: then the “cracks” that appear will show through the top one.

Decorating furniture by aging

Aging is one of the ways to restore furniture in a vintage style. If you plan to decorate it in this way, you need to prepare the furniture as follows:

• sand: first with coarse-grained sandpaper, then with fine-grained;
• You can even leave the paint on certain areas of the surface without completely removing it, which will enhance the aging effect.

Vintage furniture does not fit well into the current design of most apartments, and this should be taken into account by the home craftsman. Therefore, its design can include modern design finds that will allow it to fit harmoniously into the existing interior.

Stencils for furniture decor

Unfortunately, not everyone can improve furniture by decorating it with original drawings: not everyone is destined to be an artist - not all home craftsmen can draw, but there is no reason to be sad: you can apply drawings using ready-made or homemade stencils with various ornaments. Patterns are applied with paint using a template, and they can be fixed with a special varnish.

Templates can be made:

• from thin plywood, having first applied a pattern to them, and then cut them out with a jigsaw, manual or electric;
• thick paper;
• single-color film.

In addition, you can use self-adhesive film with a drawing applied to it. It can be cut along the contour and outlined with a pencil, and then carefully painted. Furniture painted with a single-color paint with a white openwork ornament applied to it using a stencil will look impressive.

The order of decoration using a stencil is as follows:

• the surface of the product is cleaned; if there are any irregularities, it is sanded;
• all elements are painted, after which they need to dry completely;
• make a stencil, carefully attach it and paint it with the appropriate color or colors;
• carefully remove the template, let the furniture dry completely;
• To ensure that the restored item retains its appearance for as long as possible, it can be varnished.

Decorating old furniture is a great chance for a home craftsman to show his creative abilities and save the family budget.

VIDEO:DIY Decorating old furniture with your own hands. #DIY Marusya Di

50 Photo Ideas: DIY Furniture Decorating