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For prepping furniture for paint, There's a great how-to article on the website for This Old House.

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/knowhow/repair/article/0,16417,203054,00.html

Their site has lots of other info about paint techniques as well.

I consulted bellaonline for help on painting a laminate bookshelf I just bought. Of all the searching I did, bella's advice seemed like the best bet.

One thing I read that made sense to me - and this was with regards to laminate, but I think is universal with painting furniture - 70-80% of your time is about preping the surface, the rest is painting it.

this is so odd. i was just about the send in a question regarding painting furniture to achieve a really, really high gloss finish. i think regina and i have a psychic connection.

Also, this story from This Old House about painting kitchen cabinets, gives some great tips for cleaning, priming, and painting that could totally apply to furniture:
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/knowhow/kitchen/article/0,16417,783875,00.html#
The best tip: Using Brushing Putty from Fine Paints of Europe as a primer. It makes a very hard coat and fills in a lot of the grain so you can get a smooth surface with your paint.
On the other hand, I once stained a wood piece with latex paint by diluting it with water, brushing it on, then wiping it off. The color stayed but you could see the grain through it. Then I finished it with two coats of satin polyurethane (sanding in between, of course).

I have a bunch of mismatched stuff I want to paint to match and put in a crappy weekend place. Any chance I can rent one of those machines that spray paint and use that to do all of them in an hour or two?

LOL! I'm a no-no. I spray paint and blow-torch it to melt the paint on the wood. It makes an awesome texture.

A hint for a super shiny finish: once you're done with all your paint and poly, do another light sanding, use Rottenstone per directions, and finish with a fine buffed coat of car wax. Voila. Slick, shiny, easy to wipe clean.

Why doesn't anyone ask Curtis? Hes the painting expert--oh I hope hes still on this site.

The wax tip is a good one, if you're not going to give it a poly clear coat. My tip is, after sanding the furniture, put on a primer coat and sand with 600 grit wet sandpaper. Gives the primer a smooth finish for the topcoat.

I guess sanding and smoothening hte surface goes a long way in getting a good finish after the paint work. Preparing the surface of hte wood is the toughest and most important part.

Beautiful color for that piece.. wow..gives me design ideas ...