When you decide to try your hand at finishing your own pieces of furniture you’ll need to find the right quality pieces to work on. Buying the cheapest piece of furniture is a false economy and could lead to you having to spend more on repairs, strengthening and finishing in the long term. If you know what to look for you can find well made, good quality unfinished furniture that will allow to you to create the look you want easily and with minimum effort. So what do you need to look for?
Wood Quality
For the sake of brevity, this article will focus on unfinished wood furniture. This is usually going to be made from pine as it is the quickest and cheapest woods to make furniture from. That said, pine can be a wonderful wood to work with, whether you are planning to paint, stain, varnish or wax your new piece. Look carefully for knots in the wood. Knotty pine indicates that the wood has less structural integrity and therefore less strength. Avoid knotty wood when buying unfinished bedroom furniture as it will need to be strong enough to support your body for hours on end. Bad quality pine is not just knotty, it will also have sap streaks, which make an even and attractive wood finish more difficult. Look for close grained wood with as few knots as possible and no sap streaks.
Build Quality
Unfinished furniture from a discount unfinished furniture store is likely to be badly constructed. Staples are used instead of proper joining or nails. Make sure that staples have been carefully applied. Otherwise joints will not be safe. You may have to do some extra strengthening and repairs when you get your furniture home. For chests of drawers and wardrobes, make sure that all the moving parts work properly. They must be safe and secure and fit properly. Unfinished wood furniture that is not up to the proper standards of woodwork is a waste of time to work on.
Size and Style
Ensure that your chosen piece is the right size and style for the room you are putting it in. If your piece of furniture is of good quality and in a plainer style, you can add trims and moldings if you want a more elaborately decorated piece.
Following these simple rules will mean that you can have good quality unique furniture at a price that will suit you.