Paint Color Ideas & Tips

Karen scored this dresser when it was left behind in a friend of a friend’s garage. She took that dresser with its one green painted drawer home and painted it white and cream to match her bedroom, and there it has lived for the last seven years. She and her husband are working to update their master bedroom, and Karen decided this dresser was just asking for a makeover.

When Sarah picked up this painted dresser for $25, she knew the bright red paint and mismatched knobs had to go. Since the red paint wasn’t quite her thing, she immediately covered the dresser with a coat of citri-strip. Once that round of stripper revealed the mahogany beneath the paint, she knew her makeover would be both more complicated and more satisfying.After stripping the entire dresser down to the underlying wood, Sarah pretreated the base and then stained with Minwax Dark Walnut.

Catherine’s husband Danny owned this rather orange coffee table when they first met, and she freely admits to having spent the last few years moving it around the house in an attempt to hide its rather bright hue. The flaking finish plus some penmanship practice in one corner made this piece ripe for a makeover once Catherine found her inspiration in a post by a fellow blogger.

When Susan first saw this battered buffet, it was anything but love at first sight. Water stains, peeling veneer, and missing drawer pulls — this buffet had them all. Thankfully, it also had wonderful lines, solid construction, and some beautiful carved legs peeping through the grime and abuse. With a gritty determination, Susan set out to restore this buffet to reflect its proud past.

Ashley picked this table up at a thrift store for only $10, a great deal for a piece with this much hidden storage. Despite the obvious benefits of such a table for a growing family, the look of the piece is dated and too dark for Ashley’s plan to brighten up her living room. Though this project required a lot of time and attention to detail, the end result is a great addition to Ashley’s evolving living room.

Sarah got herself a great deal on this painted dresser — or so she thought until she started sanding off the paint on the top and found not solid wood but veneer. Battered veneer patched with wood filler. Veneer she knew she would have to chip off bit by bit. Veneer that ultimately required a chisel and a heat gun to remove completely. Despite her hatred of the process, the end result was certainly worth the effort.

Fusty light fixtures are a surefire way to show that you haven’t freshened up your decor in a while. A long while, in some cases. When Kristine, the talented Aussie behind The Painted Hive, wanted to brighten up a little nook off her parents’ master bedroom (a “retreat” for her mum), she knew this fixture needed a serious makeover.It’s hard to believe it’s the same wall sconce!

After taking a break from furniture refinishing for a year to have a lovely baby, Cathy decided to get back in the game when she found these wooden nightstands listed for sale online. Solidly built but not very attractive, these nightstands were crying out for a makeover.Cathy sanded everything down to remove the old finish before using her paint sprayer to cover the bases in Benjamin Moore Moon Rise. She chose to retain the original wood tones of the top, staining it with Minwax Red Oak.

When Alisha and her husband decided the time had come to rearrange all the bedrooms in their house to better suit the needs of their growing family, they were lucky enough to have some old family favorites to help set up a new room for their toddler son that could double as a guest room when necessary. Alisha knew she wanted to reuse the beds that had belonged to her husband when he was a child, but also knew they needed an update to fit with her vision.

We just love simple solutions to customize everyday items. In this case, the item in question is a simple roller blind. Take a look at how Steph dressed up the blind after the jump…Steph, from BirdHouse, painted this tree silhouette on the IKEA Enje roller blind in her bathroom. This is a fun way to create a one-of-a-kind window treatment. If you like the project but think you lack the artist’s touch, you could also stencil a pattern onto a roller blind.

When Ashley’s aunt brought her this old rocking chair, which she had rescued from a dumpster, it was an ugly sight to behold. Still, Ashley was confident she could give it new life and, $10 later, she did just that…The first thing Ashley did was peel the fabric and foam off the chair. After removing the fabric, Ashley sanded the chair frame, then primed and painted it. Once the paint had dried, Ashley replaced the chair foam and then applied new fabric, using small finishing nails.

Do you remember the days when televisions came in these giant wood consoles? Now that we hang our flat screens on the wall, it may be hard to imagine that televisions were furniture. Nowadays these old console sets end up getting set out for the garbage man. Here’s a clever re-use of one of these anachronisms:Beckie, from the site Infarrantly Creative, picked up an old console television the night before trash day and turned it into a cute new table!

This kitchen seems to be suffering from a bit of a brown overload. With the combination of wood cabinetry and hardwood floors, plus the black appliances and dark green paint, this kitchen is looking a little dark. Jessie agreed with that assertion and decided to lighten up the room:Isn’t it amazing what a little white paint can do? Of course, it’s a lot more than just a little white paint at work here.

Sometimes I think that, with the power of paint and elbow grease, there’s never a need to buy anything new again. And seeing a before and after like this one just lends support to that theory. That something so old and battered can be freshened up to look so beautiful gives me hope that there’s plenty of life left in a lot of old things (myself included).When Terri, over at Crafty Workin Mommy, brought these two chairs home from a garage sale, her husband thought she was crazy.

One look at this kitchen sends me back to the early 1980s, when I was a wee lad ambling about the kitchen in my parent’s Indiana home. This kitchen reminds me a lot of my childhood kitchen, complete with dark wood paneling and yellow appliances. A lot has changed since the 80s… and now it’s time for this kitchen to get with the times, too.Looking at the before photo, it would be easy to think that this kitchen was beyond help.

We’ve seen the transformational power of paint here at Apartment Therapy many, many times. And yet I am still awed when I see that, with a little paint on the cabinetry, an entire kitchen can be transformed …Kimberly, over at Restoration House, has slowly been rehabbing her kitchen over the past five years. She had already added a backsplash, switched out the countertop, and traded out the old appliances for new stainless steel units.

This poor mirror. Naked as the day it rolled off the assembly line, with its exposed edges, cracked with age, right out there in plain daylight for all the world to see! Something must be done about this!Faced with naked, builder-grade mirrors in her bathroom, Amanda over at The Ivy Cottage Blog, did what any adventurous DIYer would do — she made frames for them!

When I bought these mismatched flower pots at the end of the season last year, they were so hugely discounted that I purchased them without a plan for their use. After a long winter to ponder it, I finally pulled the pots out of storage, gave them a little makeover, and put them to use.It’s not that these pots were ugly to begin with, they just didn’t match anything in my house. Spray paint to the rescue!

When my friend Rachel was given this chair — a secondhand hand-me-down from her sister — she was able to look past the ratty old upholstery and worn frame and see its true potential. With a little paint and new upholstery, the chair looks brand new.Says Rachel of the chair makeover: “I got this chair as a secondhand hand-me-down. My sister gave it to me after she had been given it from her older, quirky neighbor who she calls “Mr.

Getting the most out of a small bedroom closet can be a challenge in spatial recognition akin to playing a game of Tetris. So what if you discovered that you could expand your small closet to create a big, walk-in with enough room for even the most avid shoe buyer’s collection?I am stuck with one small closet that I share with my husband so when I saw this post detailing the expansion of a closet over at Life in the Fun Lane I was insanely jealous!

When I saw this lonely little luggage rack pushed to the back of a Salvation Army store, I felt sorry for it. Unloved and discarded by its former owner, I could see past its current beat up and water stained condition and to the gorgeous little thing it could become. Under my tender loving hands, this luggage rack has been granted a new lease on life.The quickest way to modernize this luggage rack was to spray paint it.

Ah the power of a few coats of paint! This little side table looks like it’s way past its prime but with a little elbow grease, sanding, and a fun new paint color, it is transformed!The sunny yellow paint color transformed this table from a scarred old relic to a shiny new treasure!Denese at Plum Life blogged about this table makeover. The table itself has been in Denese’s possession for some time, hence its well used appearance in the before photo.

Closets are often the spaces that get neglected in even the most stylish and organized of homes. As I get ready to start my spring cleaning, I’m pulling some inspiration from Sara’s coat closet transformation.After seeing what Sara over at Russet Street Reno did with paint and an old vegetable bin, I’m not surprised to see that she was able to transform her coat closet from plain to cute with a just a little color.

Faced with two sets of mismatched cabinets in her otherwise dreamy kitchen, Alana decided to paint the lower deck of cabinetry to complement the upper deck. After a lengthy color selection process, Alana dived into the project and the results are gorgeous!The upper deck cabinets in Alana’s kitchen are the vintage windowpane variety that were original to her bungalow — but the lower cabinets are all new.

This is the tiny guest room at the end of the hallway in my house. It started off as an ugly room with paneling and a paint job that was old and worn. It sorely needed a new coat of paint, and since I didn’t love the room to begin with, I felt brave enough to do something bold:The room is seriously small – it really only fits a full size bed. Remembering that small rooms really can go dark, I took the plunge.

Last month I wrote about how my dog’s New Year’s resolution was to ditch the dog food and start on the ‘woodchip’ diet. After she chewed through all of our windowsills, the AT community was wonderful in helping me figure out the best way to fix it! My husband took a reader’s advice and used wood epoxy, in this case J-B Weld KwikWood Epoxy Putty. See the step-by-step results below. First, he removed any splinters and lightly sanded the damaged and surrounding area.

I know there are those among you for whom the classic pink-tiled bathroom is a national treasure worth saving at any cost. And while I admire your commitment to preservation and in theory agree with you, in practice I know better — six years ago I bought a pre-War apartment with two pink tiled bathrooms and that turned out to be two too many for me.

Unless you drop your china and it shatters into a million pieces (which is usually my luck), it probably only suffered a small crack from a fall or mishap. Instead of just waiting for the day it inevitably breaks for good, try giving it a milk bath. Yup, your china is getting a day at the spa!Curious about how it works? The idea is simple. You place your cracked piece in a pot and cover it with two cups of milk (or more if needed). Next, heat over low for an hour.

Michael found a vintage Steelcase bench from the 60s and decided to replace the ripped vinyl upholsery — with Missoni! Michael chose a thoughtful mix of Missoni Kew and Missoni Claremont to totally transform and update the steel bench.Missoni upholstery-weight fabric is not cheap — but it elevated the bench to great heights!After purchasing the Missoni textiles from Amara, Michael hired a local upholsterer to do the magic.

Our Homies winner in the Kids at Home category, Meg of Whatever posted Before & After images of her kitchen remodel — and it’s a total transformation.The massive makeover took 3 months and involved tearing down a wall to transform a porch into an expanded family area of the new kitchen.You can see more pictures of the process Whatever | Before and After and see a great list of FAQ and resources from Meg in a follow up post Whatever | Questions.

When we talk chalkboard paint here at Apartment Therapy, there are invariably those who voice that the trend has run its course. Do you agree?…If you do, and if you have the trend painted onto a surface in your own home, here’s how to paint over it: Clean the wall thoroughly and allow to dry fully. Use fine sandpaper to lightly sand the surface of the chalkboard paint. Pay particular attention to the edges, as chalkboard paint may sit higher than the rest of the paint on the wall.

Let’s just say the kitchen was not what attracted us to our new home. Country rooster decor was in abundance and so were peeling vinyl floor tiles, 80s lace valances, and honey-stained cabinetry — not exactly our dream kitchen. However, coming out of grad school, we weren’t really in a position for a total dream kitchen remodel, so we prioritized our list of essential updates, enlisted a handyman friend, and went to work…FIRST ROW• 1 Before & After views.

The handle broke off my toilet a few weeks ago, right at that time when it’s too late to go to the hardware store but too early to wait until the next day to fix it (my boyfriend and I are both night owls so are often up into the early morning.) Sticking our hands into the tank every time we needed to flush seemed . . . unappealing, so we rigged up a temporary solution that we happen to think is pretty great.

We’re in the middle of painting the entire inside of a two-bedroom house right now, and thought we would share one of our favorite painting tricks. If you’re using latex paint, brushes and rollers can be frozen overnight, saving you the arduous task of cleaning them until you’re done with the project.Simply put the brush or roller into a plastic bag and stick it in the freezer. When you’re ready to start painting again, all you have to do is take it out and let it thaw.

If you need a shot of color in your home, painted furniture is always an option. We rounded up a selection of solid wood furniture from IKEA that could be dressed up with a coat or two. Some of these are unfinished, and some have a clear lacquer coat that just needs some light sanding before you prime it…Top Photo: Left to Right, Top to Bottom:• Rast 3 Drawer Chest, $39.99• Mackis Magazine File, $7.99• Stranda 4 Drawer Chest, $149• Fira Mini Chest with Drawers, $12.

So the thing about living in a rental is that someone lived there before us. Someone lazy who did not tape off the hardware on the doors or remove it entirely before painting. We are a little frustrated by the fact that all the hardware is encrusted with paint and nothing works correctly. We go to the hardware store and we stare at the shelves and we wonder: which product will best remove the paint?