Painting Wooden Furniture: A Decorative Hand-Painted Chest of Drawers
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I am generally not a huge fan of painting wooden furniture and I know it’s a really contentious issue on the internet. We have a lot of old wooden furniture in our home, from side boards to cupboards, shoe benches to vintage desks and I love the character and warmth it brings to a space.
However, every now and then, when a good quality solid wooden piece of furniture comes along that maybe isn’t to your taste but fits the size and price you want, I think it’s okay to give it a new lease of life with a coat of paint.
Enter in this chest of drawers I recently found on Facebook Marketplace for £50. It’s a great piece made of good quality hard wood, however the wood doesn’t have heaps of character, nor is the orange finish or black handles to my taste.
We needed some extra storage for the girls’ ever growing clothing collection so I decided to transform it with some primer, green paint and a little bit of hand painted detail.
I also changed the handles for some budget friendly pine wooden ones which I painted in Little Greene Tuscan Red.
Hand Painted Decorative Floral Chest of Drawers
Chest of Drawers: Before
Chest of Drawers: During
Chest of Drawers: Finished Result
One of the main reasons behind going down the paint route with this upcycle, rather than sanding the item back and popping a new stain on it, is because of these lovely old pine vintage beds that site either side of it.
Another wooden piece in here would have felt too heavy and I love how the green breaks up the natural brown colours. It also ties in with the reading nook on the other side which is what that picture was designed to do too, however now this chest of drawers sits underneath it, I think I may repaint that to a contrasting colour.
Another project to add to the list!
Chest of Drawers: Resource List
Pine Handles, Amazon
Paint (Handles), Tuscan Red Intelligent Eggshell by Little Greene
Paint (Cupboard), Winslade Acrylic Eggshell by Albany
Paint (Details), Peach Flesh Pink by Mylands, and Pale Nutmeg by Dulux Heritage
Primer, Bulls Eye 123 by Zinsser
I hope you’ve enjoyed my simple before and after of this second hand chest of drawers. Decorative furniture can feel intimidating to try so I created a tutorial for a cupboard I did using similar techniques here: