Not every excellent initial furniture piece needs to be the focal point of the room. While a magnificent cabinet, ornately carved dresser, or lustrous dining table might seem tempting, the sheer size of these pieces can overwhelm your options right from the outset. For your very first piece, it is often wiser to work with a smaller object on which you can watch the whole thing grow: the prep, the light sanding, the undercoat, the background, the decoration, the hardware, and the topcoat. It is not about showing how many changes you can achieve, but instead finding something that offers a nice practice without making you worry about what each stroke looks like.
You want your piece to be small enough for this work to take more than painting the front surface of a chair or table. A footstool, a bookshelf, a night stand, a wooden chair, or just a single drawer front are good things to get started, but they do not turn into such long jobs. You can move them, roll them over, put a drop cloth beneath them, work around the edges, the bottom, or anything that gets in your way. If you can reach all sides of the chair, legs or bottom, all the corners, etc. before having to move the piece again you are less likely to find any drips, missed spots, uneven sanding, etc. as you work.
Something that is easy to see the work on. It is often easier to start on an unornamental, lightly used piece of furniture, a painted piece, or a small flat top table, rather than starting on a piece with heavy carving, peeling veneer, deep dents, or unknown finishes. The veneer is thin and must be handled with care since you can sand right through it. Glossy finishes need to be cleaned, scuff sanded and/or primed to ensure that it will hold paint. Once you are selecting a piece you will work with run your fingers over the surface. If you notice any oily or waxy residue (often found on tables and chairs that have not been cleaned recently), peeling paint, or any kind of loose detail, take a closer look or consider moving to a different piece.
I sometimes take a few minutes to look at a piece and decide what I can do with it, before I have any ideas about what colour to use. Look around it, decide where you would wash down areas first with a mild degreaser or soap solution and a rag? Would some areas require you to use a sanding block? Is there room to apply painter’s tape on some of the edges? Is there any part you could try a stencil, dry brush, or colour on? Is the hardware likely to work well, or are you going to remove them? The simple step of looking around a piece and thinking how you are going to decorate it often tells you immediately whether you should go for a piece of furniture that will serve well for your next beginner project or whether it is going to be a bit too challenging at this time.
Pick a piece that doesn’t require major work or repair. Furniture that needs its legs fixed, is missing parts, broken joints, swollen or warped, water damaged, etc., is not the time to start a basic decorative finishing on that piece. You can improve an item that is a bit beaten up, but a decorative piece should not be used as an attempt to save furniture that could be unsafe. Pick something like a scratched side table, a footstool, an unfinished drawer or cabinet with a lot of hardware, that would not need repair but needs a makeover. This way you have all the time in the world to make a nice finish and paint job, but don’t have to deal with any other issues that the piece may have.
It is easier to select the colour plan for the piece when you know what it will be used for. Before opening a paint can, it helps to have an idea of what you want to decorate and where it will go. A piece used at the bedside might need to be in a flat or low sheen colour, whereas one on a wall or a table may be able to handle a more vibrant colour. Make a small paint sample board to test your paints to see which works well for what you are looking for and try them out before painting to see whether you like the final colour. When you put a finish over a colour, it may change the paint colour and if you try out the colours for the sheen you want (wax, satin, matte) it will make a huge difference when trying out different paints.
The best first piece is a piece you can practice without too much fuss and worry about it being “perfect.” It can be a nice sized piece, but you can turn it, move it or work on it from all sides easily. It is something that is in relatively good shape that can still be improved with a coat of paint. Try to keep it simple, just one paint colour and a choice of hardware or maybe a drawer front that you can do a stencil or colour on. It does not have to have an elaborate decoration, distressed details, moulding, or several colours all at once. Something that allows you to do some of the more important details, such as the surface prep, paint coverage, colour choices, and protective topcoat well will serve you better in your next piece of furniture than a big dramatic piece.