Painting Wood Furniture {Pinners Class PART ONE} Intro

I was blessed enough and so honored to be able to teach a class at the very first Pinners conference and Expo here in Utah. It is just as it sounds. Where everything wonderful and pinterest comes to life through live classes, hands on, your questions answered right there, demonstrations and even shopping. It was an absolute blast and a dream come true to be apart of it.I have had a lot fo questions about how I paint my furniture, what products I like, where I get it, is it worth my time, why I like it and so on so here we go, today is your lucky day because I am going to be sharing that all with you in a series throughout the next couple weeks.

I taught two classes on painting wood furniture. Such a huge topic and fun trend right now, but it can be so intimidating. How many tutorials of painting furniture or pictures as inspiration do you have pinned,  but it just seems so intimidating? That is why I was so excited to teach this class, because I wanted to explain that YOU can do this! If I can, you can! I promise. All you need as the right tools, the right instructions and some great tips and tricks that I learned along the way. I loved being able to be with other pinners face to face to go through the basics and then answer the questions or concerns they had to get them as comfortable and as confident as possible to just do it!

Although the classes were full not everyone was there and not everyone could come, so to all of you that couldn't make it to this class but want to learn the material well you are in luck because I am going to be posting my whole class {minus some of my jokes lol, just not the same when not in person} in different posts throughout this week. So get excited and make sure to follow along. Also just like in my class if you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comments or email me at wjwiki07@hotmail.com and I will address them in a QandA post at the end of the series. And of course a class is not a class with out a giveaway these days right? At the conference I gave away a side table that I redid {First time i have ever done i for someone else...nervous but excited}, but it would be tough to ship a table to a giveaway winner so you will just have to see when the giveaway goes live at the end of the class/series. So lets get this party started shall we....

Welcome to my class {blog post series} first if you are new here I want to introduce myself a little bit. 

That is a little bit about me. Also to add to this I want to say I am not an expert. I don't even sale my pieces I just do this for me and my little family's home. I just love to do it, I learned a lot through the process and I want to share it because it really is something you all can do and it will save you money which is super awesome. The first piece I ever did was my sons dresser. We were expecting when a friend of mine gave us a dresser for free. It was in amazing shape and good solid oak. I didn't love the style or color but I was so happy my little man had a dresser. I got talking with my husband and we decided to paint it. Yes, it was our first thing we painted and even though it did turn out and it was a super fun project to do together, I do not recommend doing a huge piece as your first project. After we finished it we were both in love and that is when I caught this bug and have learned and loved painting other hand me downs and pieces in our home.

Next up yes you can do it!!! Put that in your head first and for most! And you will be off to a great start. Give yourself some credit and have confidence in your ability to learn and grow. As adults I feel sometimes we feel too old or don't give ourselves enough credit when it comes to learning new skills.  I am a firm believer that this life is all about learning and growing, challenging ourselves and finding out what we love to do. Learn a new skill! It is a skill, as long as you have the correct materials,  instruction and are willing to put forth the practice and effort you will be golden.

So to start out I think it is important to know the reasons why anyone would even want to refinish furniture, or in other words what the buzz is all about and the benefits from learning this skills and putting forth the work. I came up with a few reasons or benefits with cost effectiveness as the huge one. Also the big one for me as a renter is I love to bring the color into my home this way. The most obvious is to update the furniture you already have. Take for instance this beautiful desk. I am in love with it, but it for sure needs some work. I was given this desk for free and could not pass it up even though it wasn't my style because of the bones and structure I knew with some paint and love it could be more perfect for my style then if I went looking for something already made at a store. 

So now that we have told ourselves we can do this, we want to do it and we know why we want to paint this certain piece where do we find this furniture? Above I list all the places I get my furniture with my own home or hand me downs being my top choices. This is because besides the paint and a few materials the actual piece it's FREE! The other places listed are great resources that you will find next to nothing. And a few I mentioned in my class but not on the side are: if you are really lucky I have actually found some pieces on the side of the road that say FREE on them or next to a dumpster that is going to be thrown away anyway {not in the dumpster just next to...its ok we are going to clean it}.

Getting the confidence to redo furniture is half the battle. I hope that I have given you reasons enough to believe in yourself and not only think you can do this but know you can, are excited and can't wait to get started! My favorite part about teaching these classes are how many people after said they were just nervous to start because they didn't want to mess it up, but now can't wait to get the process going. What are you nervous about? What questions do you have?.

Stay tuned for part 2...Types of paint as well as different options and styles you have when it comes to redoing a piece of furniture. All things you need to know before you just go out and start painting. I want you to love this piece you worked so hard on, so do not miss the next post. And don't forget to PIN this sucker as well as the rest of the series for the full class.

Happy learning my cute students!

PART ONE

PART TWO 
PART THREE

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