I decided to post this project as I know there is room for more information on finishing. I know I can be overwhelmed with all the different types of finish work out there as well as their associated tips/tricks, which are often not on the manufacture's directions!
My wife and I had some black furniture, which we were tired of. Some of it started from my bachelor days and some came later just to match things we already have. I really wanted to build new stuff for our living room, but it seemed like a little a bit of a waste, considering we liked it, minus the color!
Even though it was all sold as "better that Ikea" furniture, it was all pretty cheaply made with weak quarter turn screw joints and MDF.
The first thing I did was to take each piece apart and glue, pocket screw and nail the heck out of each piece.
I than scuff up the finish (committed now :-) ) with some 220 sandpaper. While my wife and I decided what color we wanted I looked into oil based paint. Even though it usually can't be found at HD or Lowe's a guy who worked in the paint department and was a professional painter for 30 years advised me to find some.
We both agreed that Latex paint never really seems to dry all the way, especially for a surface, which will have glasses and what not placed on them.
I got some oil based paint from a "paint store" and also bought a product called Penetrol to put in the paint. The Penetrol "watered down" the paint to allow more working time and avoid brush marks. I really tried to avoid usually a brush, and mainly used a very tight , high quality foam roller. It really work great and I just made sure I covered each area all the way from one side to the other. I would start with less Penetrol than they say. My paint was like soup and although it worked great, I figured you can always add more, but you can't take it out!!
The oil paint took about two days to dry in my garage (very cold now) and than I moved it into my house for the rest of the time. Once it was "cured" 3-4 days, it formed a shell like surface, which did not require any poly at all!
I feel it's about as good as you can get without having a sprayer. It was definitely more clean up as I needed paint thinner for the brushes I did use, but I stored them in zip loc bags in my garage refrigerator in between coats, until I was completely done!!
I hope this post helps someone out there!!
