Be Creative With Colour!

I love to play with colour! This applies not only to my furniture painting but also to the other hobbies I have, such as card making and scrapbooking. My designs always start with colour choices.

Sometimes a piece of furniture will “speak” to me. For instance, a child’s vintage dressing table just had to include pink, florals and soft colours.


A gent’s tallboy screamed “green” to me and I was really pleased with the outcome.

Would a deep green have worked as well on the child’s vanity? It wouldn’t have been to my taste, but it may have appealed to someone else. While it’s great to be creative with colour, sometimes we have to choose wisely to appeal to more buyers if the piece is being finished to sell. Of course if you’re painting a piece for your own home then you would paint it to suit your taste and decor. My favourite colour is duck egg blue and while it’s a popular seller I know I couldn’t paint every piece in the same shade! Having said that, a lot of painters will tell you that their local market prefers white pieces so they tend to paint mostly in white. Whatever works in your market!


Because colour is such a huge thing for me I tend to have lots of different paint “in stock” so when I come to refinish a piece I always have a good choice. I also like to mix custom colours, so having a good choice of paint is a must. When mixing a custom colour I always start with small amounts to work out my “recipe”, which means it can be replicated if I haven’t mixed enough for the job. I’ll be writing a post on custom colours soon, so if you need some hints and tips in that area please subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss it.

And then we have blending! This is my absolute favourite technique in painting. You can play safe or go crazy depending on the piece of furniture or just how you feel on that particular day! My blending has tended to be fairly subtle in the past but I’m just waiting for the right piece to come along that will look good with a more eye catching blend. Copper patina is also high up on my “to do” list! I’ll be posting more about these techniques in the coming weeks.

Stripes are another good way of using more than one colour.it can be time consuming with all the taping involved but can give really stunning results, especially if you add “pinstripes” to the design.

Again, you can be as subtle or as daring as the mood takes you.




I’ve also tried buffalo checks - even more time consuming than stripes - which I was very pleased with. Most buffalo check designs will be done with white and a darker colour, but who says you can’t do it in, say, red and green if that’s what takes your fancy?

It’s a very effective technique whichever way you choose to go with it. It’s also easier to achieve than it looks!



My next project is an Edwardian chest of drawers, which I originally intended painting in a dark damson colour. However when I went to buy the paint I ended up with something totally different! These colours just stood out on the colour chart and are different from anything I’ve used. I think they’ll work together well as a blend. I’ll share the process and the outcome in my next post.

If you’re less than confident in using colours in your furniture painting, a good idea is to look around you for inspiration. Join some Facebook furniture painting groups - most are happy to give advice and you can pick up loads of hints and tips. Watch YouTube tutorials - they will teach you all the techniques you want plus some you didn’t even know existed! Blogs are another source of inspiration as is Pinterest. Colour wheels are also a huge help when planning a colour scheme.

So, whether you’re brave with colour or a little shy of it my advice would be to paint what you like and if it doesn’t go quite to plan.....paint over it!

See you next time! Please click on the Subscribe link at the top of this page to receive notifications of future posts. Also, if there’s anything you’d like me to cover then you can use the Contact form.

Sooze x