Discover our Magic!

We Fettling Fairies use our magic to transform furniture; vintage, antique, modern, farmhouse and new. We produce quality pieces with a first-class painted finish, destined to become beloved heirlooms. Our professional furniture spray-painting service is our speciality and this also includes kitchen cabinets. We can wave our magic wands over your own cherished furniture, or source items for that special treatment. Our ever-changing range is available to buy online and you can view at our workshops by appointment. We manufacture bespoke cabinets and also do upholstery work.

Our Painted Furniture

When The Fettling Fairies started over ten years ago, we bought in special pieces of furniture to work our magic on and carried a wide range of finished pieces in our online shop. As time passed, we found that more and more of our business was coming from both customers wanting us to refinish their own furniture and orders for bespoke items. In the latter case, we buy in suitable unfinished items and transform them to our customers' specifications. This has proved more popular with our customers especially since they can specify the exact colour they require rather than purchasing a stock item where we ourselves had chosen the colour. Over the years we have built up a massive portfolio of examples of our workmanship (as sold items in our online shop). We are so fully occupied working on customer orders that now we rarely have time to transform 'stock' items to sell on our website. We do carry a small range of some unfinished items to meet the most popular bespoke orders.  Why not contact us for a no-obligation chat about your requirements! 

Our Painted Finishes

While a good proportion of the furniture items that pass under our wands can be called antique or vintage, the wear and tear they have received during their lives often means they wouldn't have commanded high prices in the sale rooms in their 'brown' state. We treat each piece sympathetically; we don't feel its history should be obliterated - so we don't sand it to within an inch of its life!

We try hard to repair, hide or fill unsightly scars and damage while leaving the little bumps and knocks untouched. We don't follow the current fashion where little or no surface preparation takes place and one coat of (fashionable name) paint is applied - that approach lends itself to the heavily distressed look. It's also quick and easy. We don't do quick and easy! We aim to achieve the best possible painted finish using ecological water-based paints.

Our first (and sometimes second and third!) coats of paint are usually a premium shellac-based primer sealer. (See our FAQs for the reason!). Following this coat, we apply a coat of special water-based acrylic undercoat in the correct colour to match the following coats. We usually then apply two coats or more of acrylic enamel water-based satin paint as a topcoat. We use hard-wearing industrial furniture grade acrylic enamel paints (rather than the cheaper retail name-brand paints) and we can perfectly match virtually any colour, most often from Farrow and Ball, Little Green or Fired Earth's charts.

We don't distress our furniture (although we will do so if a customer specifically requests). Most of our pieces are professionally spray painted; a few are hand painted; you should see the finish the Artistic Fairy gets with a tiny brush!