When Kate Veltkamp bought her first home last year, she knew there would be a lot of DIY projects – furniture renovations among them. And as she started playing with furniture, she found deep satisfaction in making her pieces feel new again.
What started as a passing hobby has now become one of her favorite pastimes.
Furniture renovation is the art of fixing up furniture. It can be as simple as a fresh coat of paint or stain. Or, others, like Veltkamp, like to go more in-depth and replace hardware or add texture to their pieces with materials like rattan.
“With furniture, there’s a million different ways to paint something and to create different finishes,” says Madi Steiner, who runs Merchants on Main with her mother, Missy Steiner. Madi also teaches furniture renovation classes for beginners and does custom paint jobs for their customers.
The most basic technique, Madi says, is painting pieces a solid color – like stark-white or clean-grey, two colors currently trending. Or, color layering is another popular option, she says, which is “where you paint a color and then, while it is still wet, blend another color in.”