Creative Furniture

Creative Ideas for Painting Furniture

Experiment with a variety of techniques to add interesting, one-of-a-kind furnishings to your home. Painting furniture is an excellent way to meld pieces of mismatched furniture and create a unified look. It's also a fine way to easily refresh and revitalize a worn or damaged piece, a flea market find, or items purchased at a thrift store or garage sale. If you choose the right painting style, you can create pieces that fit a contemporary, traditional or "shabby chic" space.

Formal Painted Furniture

If you favor a formal, traditional style in your home, choose painting techniques that merge well with your decor. Consider soft cream with hints of gold for a French provincial look, or basic black with details picked out in red, cream or gold. Solid white, cream or glossy black can also fit in well with a formal look. A highly polished red lacquer finish can be a beautiful choice if you want to add an Asian flair to your home. Create an elegant look by finishing your painted furniture with a high-gloss polyurethane or several layers of well-buffed beeswax wood finish.





"Shabby Chic" or Country Painted Furniture

If you love the look of old painted furniture with peeling and distressed paint, you can create this look on your own. Strip and sand your furniture as needed, then paint with latex paint. Sand well after painting, sanding down to the wood in spots. If desired, apply a light wash of diluted paint and wipe away the excess to add just a hint of color to your painted furniture. While white is the most common color, consider using a vivid blue, red, green or yellow, especially if you are working on a piece for a kitchen or family room. A splash of color on painted furniture can add personality to a room.