How to: Use old furniture

The first time Matthew Heinrich worked on a refinishing project, he was using aerosol spray paint. Half way through, he got a knock on the door from neighbors who could smell the paint he was using on a pair of sconces. He realized he hadn’t ventilated the room, and then noticed he could barely breath and had to open up all of the windows.

“My feet turned black from the paint residue.  I had to use paint thinner to get it off,” said Heinrich, a recent SMU grad.  The embarrassing situation Heinrich was left in led him to interior design school at The Art Institute in Dallas and to work part time for Pulp Design Studios where he plans to make a living out of decorating.

With the ongoing recession and the green movement gaining in popularity, refurbishing old furniture is becoming more popular.  There are countless “do it yourself” home improvement series on YouTube.com that teach viewers how to save money and save the environment at the same time.   Redoing furniture yourself or having a retailer do it for you is in most cases half the price of buying something new. 

Leslie Pritchard has grown up with a love for vintage furniture.  The owner of Again and Again Dallas, where vintage furniture is refurbished, says when finding furniture to recover look for a piece classic in shape and design.

With Pritchard no furniture is trash: “With paint and repository it can be redone,” she said. 

Pritchard who has never bought a new piece of furniture says the green movement first inspired people to buy used furniture because they were more mindful of the environment.  She also says that vintage quality can be much better then what is made today and you can customize something old exactly the way you want it.  Not only is the quality better, a consumer could expect to pay $5000 for a high quality custom sofa, but can expect to pay around $2,650 for a custom sofa at Again & Again.

Pritchard Sitting on her favorite chair at Again & Again

“If someone doesn’t know what they want to do, tear pictures out of magazines for inspiration and style,” Pritchard said.  Pritchard gives a step-by-step how to: When you find a piece you like, choose a fabric and paint finish first.  If recovering a chair with a seat that pops out, it is easy to use a staple gun to attach the new fabric.  If you are working with a metal piece, use spray paint; if you are working with wood, use sand paper to strip and prime 

Jenny Grumbles of Uptown Country  Snyder Plaza grew up decorating furniture from flea markets with her mom.  She now owns the store with her mother, where any piece of furniture can be repainted and reupholstered inexpensively. At Uptown Country a chair usually costs $50 to paint where as a new chair at a main stream retailer can cost $300 and up. 

Brittany Edwards Cobb is the Dallas Editor of Daily Candy and founder of the Dallas Flea, a quarterly flea market where Texas vendors sell everything from food to hand-made jewelry and furniture.  The young California native has a bohemian eclectic style and says inexpensive furniture is easy to find at flea markets, garage sales, and under-the-radar shops. “If you are going to save on a piece, splurge on fabric” to recover it, Edwards Cobb said.

Edwards says make sure you have time and space if doing the piece yourself.

If you are not ready to do it yourself, places like Again & Again on Henderson and Uptown Country Home in Snyder Plaza will take on the responsibility for you and customize any piece.

Choosing color and style depends on one’s personal taste.  Neutral colors are best for bigger, main parts of furniture and leave smaller accent pieces for pops of color.

“You can always change how it looks with pillows, carpets, and lamps,” said Prichard.  

Tweet