Painted furniture in Padstow Holiday complex

 Barn conversions and new build on Trevear farm near Padstow in North Cornwall to create luxury self-catered holiday apartments; I was asked to deal with painting all the kitchens and furniture that had been fitted throughout

The building work and fitting out has been done to a very high standard, making this a posher person’s holiday accommodation. All the bedrooms have bedside tables, dressing tables, wardrobe storage, panelled bed-heads, as well as a fitted kitchen and TV unit. All in all a lot of furniture in four apartments on the main site, and two more apartments a mile away.

All the furniture was manufactured as new, and delivered onto site ready primed for painting. For the top coats, I recommended Tikkurila Feelings furniture paint for this job because it is a durable, washable satin finish that is touch dry in an hour or so (and causes less problems onsite than using an oil paint), though I did prime the furniture with (oil-based, but quick drying) Otex primer as well. Both primer and paints were mixed by Holman Paints to match some colours on the Farrow & Ball chart .

Apart from waltzing around carpenters, electricians, and other painters, the work was very straight forward, albeit done to a tight schedule. I used the belt & braces approach of re-priming the factory primer with Otex before painting the top-coats to ensure a hard wearing result.

When I say everything here was done to a high standard, there were the inevitable slip-ups and rushed installations on a big job like this. Luckily there was not too much like the badly fitted mitre in the picture. Thank goodness for painters, eh?

Postscript

Some weeks after I had finished the job and left the site, some doors were replaced due to warping.

The client asked the site painters if they could paint the doors before they were installed. Unluckily for the client – but luckily for me – the painters weren’t up to the standard needed for the job. I don’t make a habit of “dissing” other trades peoples work (like I’ve done in this post!). But I think I do go the extra mile to produce a great result.

So the doors were passed on to me.

Sand out the brush marks, prime and two coats of Feelings and the doors match the rest of the furniture.

Published by: Colin Taylor on: August 10th 2016