Upcycle Your Furniture With Wilko Paint
Published: 26/02/2019
Wilko paint has the power to transform your old, unused and previously unloved pieces of furniture in relatively little time and without breaking the bank.
Our fantasticspray paintsare designed to spray new life into your existing furniture and accessories, helping to update your look by creating a perfectly bespoke, heartfelt look and feel for your home.Whether youre transforming an old hand-me-down, aquirkypiece youve uncovered at an antiques market or something youve had lying around for ages, our top tips will help you to pull off a professional-looking paint job every time. We even have some top tips for upcycling with wallpaper too.
Upcycle with paint
Its important to always paint in a well ventilated area. Its also a good idea to protect the area where youre painting with a dust sheet or newspaper. When youre ready, heres our top tips:
Whatever it is youre upcycling, its important to sand it down and fill holes where necessary.
Never skip the primer this provides the perfect base for your paint in terms of coverage, colour and finish. Using a primer is especially important if youre spraying onto bare wood. The primer will also help stop any knots in the wood from showing through the paint. This step is essential for plastic objects as it will give the paint more grip on the smooth surface.
Remove all hardware like handles and hinges theyll always look better than if you try to paint around them and you could always give those a mini makeover of their own. Take a look at our range ofdoor knobs here
Try to lift the item youre painting off the floor so that you can reach the bottom of legs and other tricky bits more easily. For big items, use old paint pots, scrap blocks of wood or food tins. For small, light items try using bits ofblutack.
If your furniture has drawers, use masking tape to section them off so that you can spray the front without making a mess.
To avoid unsightly drips and an uneven finish, apply 2 to 3 light, fine coats of spray.
Let your furniture dry properly before moving it or touching it. Our spray paint is touch dry after 20 minutes and hardens in 24 hours.
Take a look at the chair we upcycled usingWilko Gloss Spray Paint Royal Blue.
Upcycle with wallpaper
If the furniture youre upcycling is made from MDF or veneer and cant be fully sanded down, why not use wallpaper instead? Wallpaper is so versatile, and patterned styles can add a real design difference to your living space.
If your set of veneer drawers have a few lumps and bulbs on, gently sand these off with low-grit sandpaper. Unscrew handles. Clean away the dust.
Roll out your wallpaper on a clean pasting table or art table.
Take out your drawer and place it front face down on the back of your wallpaper
Mark around the drawer with a light pencil, making sure to make an indent with the pencil where the handle screws should be.
Move the drawer to the one side. Using aStanley knife, carefully cut out your drawer shape.
Mix the required amount of paste and then spread the paste onto the paper with a paste brush or roller.
Stick in place and spread out from the middle using a brush or roller
If you dont fancy getting messy with wallpaper and paste, why not use sticky-back plastic? We have a huge range ofsticky-back plasticin so many styles including metallic, floral, art deco and marble. It can easily be cut to shape with a Stanley knife. Simply peel off the backing and stick in place.
We transformed the drawers below usingArthouse Wallpaper Glisten Silver.
Top tip:Textured or patterned wallpaper will help hide and lumps, bumps and imperfections.
Add the finishing touches with accessories
Its not just furniture that can be upcycled. You can bring old vases back to life with a lick (or spray) of paint.Start looking around your local car boot sale or charity shop, or just cast your eye around your home for old vases, ornaments, candle sticks or general bits and bobs you might have fallen out of love with. Getting creative is a cost-effective way to make things match and add the personal, finishing touches to any room around the home.