Do you ever look at some of the furniture that people are selling at yard sales, and think to yourself, "That would have looked so much better if they hadn't painted it that horrid colour"? Well, you are probably right. Not only would it look better, it would also be worth a lot more money, too! With a little bit of hard work, and some tender loving care, you could return that brightly painted chest of drawers to its original wood, and make it far more saleable. There really is no limit to what you can renovate. There are plenty of varnish, and paint strippers on the market nowadays. If you think that painting one of these products over the furniture, waiting a few hours, and then scraping the paint off takes too long; you could invest in an electric paint stripper and have it done in a fraction of the time. After you have revealed the original wood, you can either leave it stripped, or paint a coat of varnish over it. Either way, you can sell it for more than you paid, and you will have just recovered your initial small outlay, and made yourself a nice little profit.
The craze for 'customising' furniture has meant that there is a lot of furniture out there that has been butchered with brightly-coloured paints, transfer, stencils and every other technique that people have seen on the do-it-yourself programs. They are certainly to blame for a lot of hideous creations! However, you can thank them that they did encourage people to paint over their furniture, because you can now make a profit from it. You may even find that there is a valuable piece of oak furniture hiding beneath that pale lilac marble effect. You could find that you are able to sell it at an auction for a lot more than you originally paid for it at the thrift shop.
There are a lot of places where you can pick up cheap pieces of furniture - yard sales, thrift stores, the classified section of your local paper, online auction site and many more places besides. You may even be able to rescue some from being trashed. The owners will be more than happy to accept a couple of bucks for the table that they have left out for the garbage man to take away.
Whether you leave the wood in its original state without varnish, or add a coat of clear wood varnish, is up to you. Some people will still want to have the bare wood that they can then add a coat of wood stain, and varnish too. It might be worth keeping them stripped, and then asking potential buyers if they would like you to varnish it for them; for an additional fee of course! Natural wood is far too beautiful to be painted with bright, gaudy colours. You can help restore that beauty, and make yourself some money in the process too. All you need to get started is a few bucks to pick up your first piece, and paint remover, and you are on your way!
