Finishing pine furniture is not different from finishing other types of furniture. The basic steps are all here: sanding, applying the coats of finish, waiting for the coats to dry, and then applying the varnish and finally polishing the wood smooth. The only difficulty is that pine doesn’t stain as easily as do other types of wood. The pluses far outweigh the minuses with pine wood, however. It’s easy to cut and somewhat inexpensive. Once you have your pine cut into the shape you needed, the shapes are all fitted together, the next step is to finish the wood to give it that distinctive sheen.

The first thing to do is sand it. Pine is easy to sand but easy to damage, so be careful with what kind of sander you use. The softer wood between the growth rings is more easily worn down than the rings themselves. To counter this, use a variable-speed random orbital sander. The random orbital sander will not wear down the softer wood at the expense of the integrity of the whole piece because of its random orbit. Start by setting it to the lowest speed and letting the sander do the work, being careful not to press too hard into the wood. If you are building your furniture piece, do not forget to sand each part individually before assembling it. This will spare you from having to sand tight spaces and corners after the piece is already assembled.

Once that is done, it’s best to finish sanding by hand. Avoid using a belt sander or a sander set to high speed because this will likely scratch the pine. Should you scratch the wood, it’s easy to fix. Wet the area with a hot wash rag and then heat it. This will raise the wood grain and make the scratch easier to repair. Once this is done, sand as usual. The scratch should come right off.

Pine is a combination of soft and hard wood, so staining it can be difficult as mentioned earlier. This is because pine absorbs the stain at different rates, which is likely to cause blotching. The solution is to seal it before staining it, as this prevents the wood from absorbing the stain at different rates. Once this is done, use a gel-based stain as it is not runny and easy to spread around.

Pine wood is the same no matter what kind of furniture it is used in. Pine bedroom furniture, pine living room furniture or pine office furniture are all made of the same wood. The finishing technique for unfinished pine furniture, therefore, is relatively similar across all types of furnishings.

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