I'm back from finishing my last project and this intro should tell you if this post is for you or not.
Through this post I'll calculate how much it cost to paint pine furniture per square meter so you can calculate it for any piece of furniture.
I got a bare wood pine table from a typical provider and decided to paint it (semi) professionally. Semi because I'm not a professional, but I did it as pro as possible with all the materials a pro'd use. This is great except for the fact that you can't blame anything but yourself for any bad results. I must say that the results were pretty decent, fully approved by the judges and I'd say it was worth it. So in summary, this post is NOT about HOW, but about HOW MUCH. I'll describe the technique to show where the cost comes from and not to tell you how to do it because there are plenty of better bloggers for that.
Through this post I'll calculate how much it cost to paint pine furniture per square meter so you can calculate it for any piece of furniture.
I got a bare wood pine table from a typical provider and decided to paint it (semi) professionally. Semi because I'm not a professional, but I did it as pro as possible with all the materials a pro'd use. This is great except for the fact that you can't blame anything but yourself for any bad results. I must say that the results were pretty decent, fully approved by the judges and I'd say it was worth it. So in summary, this post is NOT about HOW, but about HOW MUCH. I'll describe the technique to show where the cost comes from and not to tell you how to do it because there are plenty of better bloggers for that.
Introduction
I'll put the materials here and will justify them in the next section.
Materials and costs
Material | Brand | Price | Quantity | Yield | Marginal Cost (per session, per m2) | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Foam block | NA | 5 | 1 | Fixed | NA | |
Protective plastic sheet | NA | 7.64 | 3 giant | Fixed | NA | |
Brushes | The fox | 18.99 | 5 | Fixed | NA | Recommended |
White spirit | Bartoline | 4.49 | 500 mL | 10 sessions/L | 0.898 | |
Brush cleaner | Polycell | 4.99 | 500 mL | 6-8 sessions/L | 1.425714286 | I should have bought cheaper |
Blue tape | Dolphin | 6.64 | 3 | 3-5 sessions per tape | 0.5533333333 | |
Cleaning cloth | NA | 2.96 | 3 | 10 sessions per cloth | 0.09866666667 | |
Conditioner | Owatrol oil | 18 | 0.5L | 10L oil egshell/L, 160 m^2/L | 0.225 | Every liter is used with 10 liters of Oil Egshell |
Sanding papers mix | NA | 4 | 6 | 1 m^2/paper | 0.6666666667 | |
Sanding paper 120 | NA | 5 | 3 | 1 m^2/paper | 1.666666667 | |
Primer | Blackfriars | 11.52 | 0.5L | 6 m^2/L | 3.84 | |
Undercoat | Little green | 22 | 1L | 12 m^2/L | 1.833333333 | |
Oil Egshell | Little green | 25.5 | 1L | 16 m^2/L | 1.59375 | |
Patina | Langlow | 8.99 | 320 gr | 2 m^2 /100gr | 1.498333333 | |
Delivery charges | 18.9 | OUCH! | I'll leave them outside and replace them by a 30% extra at the end | |||
Grand total | 164.62 |
This cost includes an extra 30% to cover delivery and "errors". To summarise, there is a fixed initial cost of £32 and an extra variable cost of about £13 pounds to paint this table (plus the table...). It takes about 30 mins per session and then depending on what you're applying, from a couple of hours to a day to dray out.
Cost per sessions | Marginal cost (pounds) | Final cost my pine table (pounds) |
---|---|---|
Wood preparation Sanding | 0.67 | 0.67 |
Top ("Patined") | ||
Patining first coat | 1.49 per m^2 | 0.8195 |
Patining second coat | 1.49 per m^2 | 0.8195 |
Rest (Painted) | ||
Primer coat | 3.84 per m^2 | 1.152 |
Undercoat coat | 1.83 per m^2 | 0.549 |
First Oil Egshell with conditioner | (1.59 + 0.22) per m^2 | 0.543 |
Sanding between coats | 1.7 | 1.7 |
Second OilEgshell no conditioner | 1.59 per m^2 | 0.477 |
4 Painting sessions extras | 3 | 3 |
Grand total | 12.649 |
So then, the first time you paint anything, the base cost is £32 (I'll approximate amounts to the next pound). Then, you have the semi-fixed cost per session, i.e. everything that it isn't paint. So, following the procedure described in the next section, fully painting a piece of furniture requires 4 paint-sessions and 2 Patina sessions. My pine table area is: the painted section 0.3 m^2 and the patined section 0.55 m^2 approximately.
Procedure
I gave the table a different treatment to the top and legs of the table. I did something like a staining but better to the top (what I call patined) and painted the legs and lower part of the table. The steps I followed were some or less the ones shown below. Again, this is not about the method, but about justifying the materials:
- Prepared the wood: sand it, clean it, etc.
- I did the top first: two layers of Patina. It's brilliant, better than anything I have tried before and leaves a beautiful honey color when applied to pine.
Then I worked though the lower section of the table:
- Water based primer: necessary to cover darker nots and prepare the wood for the undercoat
- Undercoat oil-based: necessary to give prepare a smooth surface for the coats
- First coat oil-based with conditioner: the conditioner helps to keep the paint smooth. The paint is thick and it has to be applied quickly and without making mistakes. The conditioner allows you to go over something you don't like and correct it. This was useful for me to get rid of the dripping, but I had to sand it before the last coat anyway. Also, the conditioner makes the paint shinny which I don't like. That's why I think if you want to get rid of something, the conditioner should be the first one to go.
- Last coat oil-based without conditioner: I has more training and avoided the shinny finishing avoiding the conditioner.
The result
Tada!! I like it. There are a couple of details, but very very small ones that only I notice.... They won't be there the next time though.