Meet Nick Holloway: Furniture Sprayer

Following our article where we introduced the technicians and artisans who transform furniture at our award-winning Renew Centre, it’s time to take a deeper dive into those experts, and discover what they do on a day-to-day basis at Crown Workspace.

Nick is the Renew Centre’s expert furniture sprayer and helps transform old furniture by re-spraying them with paint, varnish or wax.

“Before I came to Crown Workspace, I already had a passion for woodwork,” he said. “I worked as a garden carpenter, building and decorating sheds and fences, so that was a good grounding.

“But when I first arrived four years ago, spray painting was new to me. There was a job vacancy, however, and I realised I had to teach myself if I wanted to get it. So, I spent hours on YouTube watching guides and trying out the techniques.

“There is a lot to learn and I’m still learning! People probably think you just spray away but there’s a real skill to it and sometimes you have to spray incredibly fast. If you’re spraying an item with yellow paint, for instance, it will separate if you aren’t quick enough – and you’ll end up with one chair that’s bright yellow and another that’s a lot darker. “

Nick’s role is more customer facing than some of his colleagues. Potential clients regularly visit the Renew Centre to find out how it works – and always want to visit the spray booth!

They also love seeing how furniture can be transformed to look new.

Nick said: “Sometimes we try to recreate the original colour of the furniture when it was first manufactured, which is exciting.

“Other times a client might want a specific colour scheme or prefer a varnished finish.

“One of the best parts of the job is watching the reaction of a client when they see the results. They are often so surprised.”

Furniture spraying is also important when Crown Workspace makes items from scratch.

Nick added: “One of my favourite jobs was spraying art stands for our sister company Crown Fine Art, which were then installed in cathedrals around the country. I go to go and see them in place, which was exciting.

“I enjoy the bigger jobs, too. Recently I had to spray 600 cabinets for a client and it’s a great feeling when you finish a job like that, knowing that you are also helping the environment by preventing furniture being thrown away.”

Find out more by reading the full article here