Tools Every Beginner Needs To Flip Furniture

Shopping for furniture can sometimes be harder than you want it to be. Difficult to find that piece of furniture for a specific place in your home, or the color to match? Discover just how easy and cheap it is to flip your own furniture. With these beginner tool tip provided you can take that dresser or old coffee table and turn it into a beautiful piece of furniture for your home.

Here are the beginner tools we recommend to get you started with flipping furniture.

A Solid Piece

Carefully inspect each piece of furniture you want to flip before you buy it. There are things you can fix and things you can’t, and understanding those will help you make an informed decision. Of course, you might be handy or equipped enough to deal with some of the items listed as can’t fix.

Things you CAN fix:

• Hardware- the knobs, drawer pulls, and hinges can all be replaced or added if they’re ugly, outdated, broken, or missing
• Small gaps- if you’re choosing a piece of wood furniture, small gaps can easily be fixed with some wood filler. You’d just apply a little to the gap and smooth it in while it dries, then sand it into the area next to it to blend it.
• Rough edges- a little bit of sandpaper can go a long way if you’re dealing with edges that aren’t quite smooth enough. However, if it’s a lot of space you’d need to sand, just keep in mind how much work that is. It can be doable, but make sure your expectations of the project are what you want.
• Color- that’s the fun part, of course! You can paint over your piece to customize it to fit your home and personal style, so don’t worry if it doesn’t look like much now.

Things you CANT fix:

• Broken drawer tracks- if your potential piece has drawers that don’t move smoothly, move on. You don’t need to spend your time and energy fixing drawers that won’t work. However, if you’re planning on removing the drawers for your finished product, then it’s not an issue.
• Wobbliness- if the furniture you’re looking at is unsteady or rocking back and forth because of uneven legs, then you should keep looking. If it’s something you already own and you don’t mind making it work, then that’s fine. I would never buy a piece that was wobbling, unless I thought tightening the screws in the legs would fix it. You’re going to be investing your time, energy, and money onto this furniture, so you want to make sure it will last you.
• Giant holes- wood filler can do a lot, but, unfortunately, it won’t be able to fix any gaping holes in your furniture. Watch out for any big holes or other glaring issues in your piece.

Wood Specific Products:

Wood Filer and Wood glue are important to have on hand when flipping or up cycling furniture.The cost of these are low and are really useful when you find a gap or a crack in the wood or if you need to attach something to your piece of furniture

Getting the right paint:

Choosing the correct paint is more than just picking out a color. Choosing the right type of paint is what really matters. There are loads of different paints on the market which makes it hard to know what you need for the project. If you’re going for a distressed look, or if you don’t want to completely sand, prime, and prep your piece, then chalk paint is the way to go! It’s a special type of paint that sticks to all surfaces, so sanding isn’t necessary.

If you don’t mind sanding and prepping your piece, then latex paint is the way to go. You’ll have a variety of color options and finishes, as well as more places to buy them from. However, sanding is a long, difficult process, especially if you’re doing it all by hand

Sandpaper:

It is always good to have a sanding block or sand paper on hand when working with wood. If you using wood glue or filer you would want to sand the area to blend it into your furniture.

When you buying sandpaper you want to look at the grit, this tells you how coarse the sandpaper is. You would want to start with a lighter grit and work your way up to a higher grit. 

Flipping your own furniture doesn’t have to be a difficult process, it’s something you can totally do to beautify your home with just a few beginner tools. For a simple entry into the world of customizing your own furniture, these tools are all you’ll really need.