One hurdle that I always find myself in is how to make my recently completed piece of furniture look like it came from a fine furniture store. It has to have fine craftsmanship (tight joints, smooth surfaces, no scratches, etc.). The problem I always seem to have is trying to figure out how to finish it.
There are lots of ways to tackle this, and there are lots of sites devoted to this. The questions you need to ask:
1) What is this piece to be used for?
This becomes pretty important for things like material choice and sealants. If its an outside piece, lacquer or enamel with lots of sanding between coats is a good way to go.
2) What does it need to match to?
For the interior decorator in all of us. Dark stains, light stains, paint colors, fabric decorations. They all come into play. The best bet for stain is to take a piece of scrap wood from the piece you built and stain it to see how the wood will react and look. Some stains play really well with sheathing grade plywood. Some paints work great on MDF, but need lots of work to make them into a mirror finish.
3) How much time do you have?
If you’re keen on getting the piece completed and in use, rather than spending hours on sanding, you may want to invest in some fancy sanding tools, or just figure out a finish that will suffice (we’ll post about this in the future). Lots of the areas of a piece don’t need to be finished as finely as others - a table top needs to be as perfect as possible, but the backsides of the legs don’t need as much attention.
All in all, here are a couple of links that can help get you started:
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