A freshly painted surface (latex paint, 24 hours dry) still sort of smells like paint. Is it OK to cover with fabric and cushions, or is it really not cured yet?

Personally, I would wait. Particularly if you’re going to be putting weight on the covering fabric – you could end up with impressions in the paint, and/or traces of paint on the fabric. Unless you have a guest coming over right away, I’d give it a bit longer to be safe.

Is the surface tacky? Or is it dry and solid – and a thin film that will be dry and solid through-and-through. (I’ve made the mistake with some oil-based paints to mistake a “looks and feels dry enough on the surface” for “really dry”, and messed up what would have been a fine paint job.)

@CWOTUS
Surface is totally dry. The only basis of the question is a slight odor of paint. Is that just the way fresh paint is, or is the process of curing not really over until the odor is gone. Thanks for your input

I would wait at least three days.

When our living room woodwork was painted last year, the painter told us to wait a week to let it cure before putting anything on the mantel. I waited a full thirty days. Didn’t want to take any chances at all. In the scheme of things, that was a short time to wait, as opposed to a long while to live with a messed-up job or else have to do rework.

You painted furniture with acrylic paint? sure it wasn’t latex?
Try this: scrape at it a little tiny bit with a thumbnail in a place where you can’t see it. That’s your test. If a nail won’t take it off, neither will adjacent fabric.

Oh for god’s sakes. You said latex, I read acrylic. I feel like such a fool. Enjoy.

@Jeruba
Makes sense. Think I’ll wait for a while

If your real question is about the smell getting on your stuff, then I would open the windows and let it air out for another 2 days or so while pointing a fan to it to hurry the drying process. I painted my bathroom cabinets with a no smell paint and it took a week for the smell to be pretty much gone. The no smell still does smell a little, but just not as bad. I find it depends on the room sometimes. The more traffic that goes through the less it will smell. When I did my kitchen cabinets it took about 5 days for the smell to leave. Same paint too.

Since surface preparation is so vital to a good paint job, and “being sure that the item is dry” is the most critical part of surface prep, this explains why I often wait years before putting on that first coat.

I would rather not do it at all, than do it badly. Mostly, I would rather not do it at all, though.