Questions about painting furniture...

Factual Questions
1

My wife and I just got a table and chairs from Goodwill. It’s a really good set, but it’s pretty scuffed up. Though I’ve done a lot of painting in my day, I’ve never really worked with wood stains.

Particularly, what I’m curious about is how to paint a design on the table. What we want to do is sand down the table, re-stain it, then paint a design on it (not a pattern, it wouldn’t cover the majority of the table, the wood would be visible underneath).

So, first of all, for the design (let’s say it’s a tree), what sort of paint should we use? Oil? Acrylic? After painting the tree on the table, should we cover that with something? Lacquer?

2

I would paint the design with water-based acrylic, let it dry thoroughly, then top-coat it with oil-based polyurethane.

3

I would paint the design with a water based paint and then put on as many coats of lacquer as it took to get the effect i wanted. The thing i like about using lacquer in home based refinishing is that it dries so fast that the finish does not get the dust in it that other longer drying materials do. I have used just about everything and I think it’s the way to go.