Furniture

Ep55 What Exactly Is Mineral Paint?

Does the Paint Jar Label Tell You Exactly What’s Inside? When you’re new to furniture flipping, it’s easy to assume the name on a paint jar tells you exactly what’s inside. Mineral paint sounds pretty straightforward. It’s mineral paint, right? Well…not necessarily. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned after years of painting furniture is that product names and marketing terms don’t always tell us everything we need to know. Two paints associated with the word mineral can have very different formulations and behave very differently on furniture. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with either product. It means we need to learn to look beyond the label. A good example is Fusion Mineral Paint. Fusion explains that its binder is 100% acrylic resin while its pigments are derived from minerals. If you only saw Mineral Paint on the front of the jar, you might have assumed something different. And … Read more

Ep54 A Furniture Flipper’s Guide to Antiques: Why Is That Doll Looking at Me?

Just Because It’s Old Doesn’t Mean It’s Valuable One of the easiest assumptions to make when you’re new to furniture flipping is that old furniture must be valuable. It’s old. It’s solid. It has dovetails. Grandma had one. Surely somebody is going to pay a fortune for it. Not necessarily. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from buying and selling furniture is that age alone doesn’t create value. A piece may be beautifully made and more than a hundred years old and still be difficult to sell. Another piece from a much later period may have buyers fighting over it. Why? Because value needs a beholder. A buyer may care about the maker, rarity, construction, original finish or history. But ultimately, somebody has to actually want that piece enough to pay for it. That matters to furniture flippers because we have another decision to make: What should we do … Read more

Ep53 Alkyd & Urethane Paint — Pretty Is Nice, but Will It Last?

Alkyd & Urethane Paint — Pretty Is Nice, But Will It Last? Pretty furniture is easy to photograph, but the real test is what happens after it leaves your workshop. One of the most important things I’ve learned through years of painting furniture is that there isn’t one “best” paint. There’s only the paint that’s best suited to what you’re trying to accomplish. That’s why I keep coming back to this advice: Learn your products and choose according to your need at the time. Alkyd and urethane paints are a good example. Products such as Sherwin-Williams Emerald Urethane are designed to create a hard, durable finish that can stand up to frequently used and cleaned surfaces. That matters when you’re selling furniture, because your responsibility doesn’t end when you take the pretty Marketplace pictures. Your work goes home with somebody. I’ve used different paints for different projects over the years, … Read more

Ep52 Acrylic Paint — What Works, What Changes & What Lasts

Acrylic Paint: Why Knowing Your Product Matters Acrylic paint sounds simple enough, right? You see acrylic on the label and assume you know what you’re getting. Not necessarily. One of the most important things I want you to learn as a furniture artist is this: the paint family tells you where to start, but it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the product. Think about those little bottles of acrylic craft paint you’ve probably seen at the store. I’ve used them for stenciling and decorative details for years. They’re acrylic. But so are some coatings specifically formulated to stand up to the everyday wear and tear we expect from furniture. In fact, professional wood coatings can use acrylics, polyurethane dispersions and blends of resin technologies to achieve different performance characteristics. Those products aren’t interchangeable just because they share the word acrylic. That’s why I’m always telling you … Read more

Ep51 Chalk-Type Paint — Loved by Some, Hated by Others, but Still On My Shelf

There was a time when chalk-type paint seemed to be everywhere. If you painted furniture, chances are you had a can or two sitting on your shelf. Today? Well…people have opinions. Some furniture painters still love it. Others wouldn’t touch it. Me? I still have it on my shelf, and there’s a pretty simple reason why. I know what it’s going to do. After you’ve painted enough furniture, you begin to get acquainted with your products. You learn which paints level beautifully, which ones need a little extra help, which ones work well for certain projects, and which ones you’d just as soon leave sitting on the shelf. I call that getting to “no-brainer land.” It doesn’t mean you’ve found the perfect paint. I don’t think there is one. It means you’ve gained enough experience that you don’t have to hold a committee meeting with yourself every time you open … Read more

Ep49 Experience: How We Discover What We Love

Experience: How We Discover What We Love Experience has a way of teaching us what no opinion ever can. Ask a group of furniture flippers what the best paint is, and you may get more opinions than there are people in the room. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a favorite. I certainly have mine. But there’s a difference between learning from someone else’s experience and allowing their preferences to become yours before you’ve had a chance to develop your own. That’s why we’re beginning the paint-family portion of The Furniture Artist’s Resource Guide with true milk paint. Prefer to listen? Hit play below. Old Fashioned Milk Paint is unlike most paints you may have sitting in your workshop. It comes as a powder, you mix it yourself, and you can adjust that mixture depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. There’s a bit of a learning curve, … Read more

Ep45 We Weren’t Meant to Travel Alone

We Weren’t Meant To Travel Alone One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is believing they need all the answers before they get started. I see it all the time in furniture flipping. Someone wants to know what piece to buy, what paint to use, how much profit to expect, how to price their work, and whether their design choices are correct. Every answer seems to create three new questions. The problem isn’t a lack of information. If anything, we have too much information. Social media gives us access to thousands of opinions. One person says to paint everything. Another says never paint wood. One flipper swears by a particular product while another avoids it entirely. It’s enough to make your head spin. Over the years I’ve realized that what most beginners need isn’t another random answer. They need direction. They need someone who remembers what it felt like to … Read more

Ep44 Turn Right in 500 Feet… Recalculating…

Turn Right in 500 Feet… Recalculating… Have you ever noticed that your GPS rarely shows you the entire trip? It tells you the next turn. Then after you make that turn, it gives you the next one. If you miss a turn, it doesn’t panic. It simply says, “Recalculating.” I’ve been thinking about that lately because furniture flipping feels a lot like that right now. The market has changed. Marketing has changed. Technology has changed. Many flippers—especially beginners—feel overwhelmed trying to figure out what they should do next. The truth is, we often want a complete roadmap before we take action. We want to know exactly how things will work out before we buy the furniture, create the listing, launch the business, or try something new. But life rarely works that way. Over the years I’ve discovered that God often guides us much like a GPS. He doesn’t always show … Read more

Ep42 The Roads Changed. So I Changed How I Drove.

The Roads Changed. So I Changed How I Drove. | Adapting to Change as a Furniture Flipper New to flipping? Start here: ValFrania.com/LearnToFlip The Best Time to Prepare Isn’t During the Blizzard The world changes fast. Technology changes. Marketing changes. Buyer behavior changes. New tools appear almost overnight. It can feel overwhelming trying to figure out what you should be learning next. The truth is, most of us wait until we have a problem before we start looking for a solution. I learned years ago that preparation is much easier than panic. When I worked as a nanny in Wisconsin, winter driving was simply part of life. Snow-covered roads, icy hills, and deep drifts weren’t unusual. The drivers who struggled the most weren’t necessarily bad drivers. Often, they just weren’t prepared for the conditions they were facing.   Furniture flipping is similar. Many beginners focus on learning how to paint, … Read more

Ep41 When Everybody Sounds Like An Expert

When Everybody Sounds Like an Expert New to flipping? Start here: ValFrania.com/LearnToFlip There’s something happening online right now that I think many beginners are quietly struggling with. Everybody sounds like an expert. One person says always use this paint. Another says never use it. One says you have to spray furniture to be successful. Another says spraying is cheating. One person says post more content. Another says social media is pointless. And somewhere in the middle of all that noise sits the beginner…trying to figure out who to trust. This week I spent hours tangled up in Stripe issues, AI support chats, mystery subscriptions, and enough confusing tech advice to make me seriously question whether I accidentally signed up for a software engineering degree. Oddly enough, a gardening group helped reinforce the lesson. I saw beginner gardeners posting photos of leggy tomato plants only to be told by strangers online … Read more