Creative Ideas for Painting Wood Furniture

Painted wood furniture can be a beautiful and eye-catching addition to your interior décor. If you are planning to paint wood furniture yourself, here are six ideas for achieving unique results.

Match the Furniture to Its Location. Start by envisioning the piece of furniture in place so that you can coordinate the colors, surface finish and design of the finished piece with the décor, furnishings and fixtures of its planned location. A look that is perfect for a child's room probably won't be suitable for the kitchen.

Do Your Homework. Before you choose colors and designs, check out painted furniture in interior decorating and home design books, magazines and websites to get ideas on painted furniture designs and how to integrate painted furniture into your home.

Don't Limit Your Palette. While solid colored painted furniture can be right in some situations, don't automatically limit your furniture to only one shade. View the base color that you apply to your wood furniture as a canvas on which you can express your creativity. Simple ways to make painted furniture stand out are to paint inner panels different shades than outer frames; to use thin lines of contrasting or darker paint to highlight or define parts of the furniture such as drawers; and to paint the sides, top and/or legs different colors than the front. Depending on the piece of furniture and your taste, multi colors can simply be different shades of the same color or contrasting colors.

Use Surface Decorations. Use stencils or stamps to decorate your painted furniture and to incorporate it seamlessly into your interior decorating scheme. For example, if you are adding a painted hutch to your Tuscan-design kitchen, stencils of grape vines might be a perfect finishing touch. Stencils can also be fun on furniture for a child's room. If you are a talented artist, go all the way and hand paint decorations or even a whole fresco on your wooden furniture. Admittedly, a fresco won't work on all or even most furniture or in all or most rooms, but where it does work, it can result in a very special conversation piece that showcases your artistic talents.

Consider Faux Finishes. Explore a variety of finishes for your painted furniture. Many faux finishing techniques that are used for walls also can be transferred to furniture. You may be able to achieve many of these looks on your own with some creativity, but there also are specialty paints formulated to make the process easier and, perhaps, more fool proof. Crackling, color washing, sponging and ragging are just a few of the surface techniques that will set your painted furniture apart. Another interesting option is to create a metallic look with a translucent metallic paint product.

Use Hardware to Complete the Look. Make hardware an integral part of your painted furniture design. In some instances, you may want to paint hardware to match or contrast with the surface color of the piece. In others, you may opt for hardware in another material (metal, ceramic or glass, for example) that is appropriate for the design of the piece of furniture and its location.

Sources:

Julie Hampton, www.ehow.com, Best Way - Ideas for Painting Wood Furniture/eHow.com

www.sherwin-williams.com, Faux Finishing - Sherwin-Williams