Use This Easy-to-Do Painted Pattern Trend to Beautify or Conceal

The power of painted-on pattern is well known. You can conceal damage on thrifted furniture pieces, you can update dated kitchen and bathroom cabinets—you can use paint patterns to upgrade just about anything you can put paint on. But not everyone has the DIY skills (or energy or time) to paint elaborate patterns. Thankfully, there’s a paint pattern trending—and it’s easy to do, can be done in any color and helps both beautify and conceal.

I’ve spotted this painted-on pattern in a handful of recent house tours. It’s been adding color and style to lots of different surfaces, but it’s also been concealing damaged furniture and helping beautify old cabinetry. What makes this pattern so successful is two things:

All the painted patterns in this post start from a corner of the furniture piece or cabinet door. So taking tape and diagonally lining it up with opposite corners can help you map this triangle pattern easily. And the large scale of the triangles means you’re not having to paint tiny areas (so it takes less time and less materials to achieve).

Because these are all large-scale triangle shapes, it feels less like a small, repeating pattern and more like a graphic design. This is the key to the power of this pattern’s ability to conceal and beautify: your eye sees the painted pattern more than it does a cabinet door or furniture piece’s edges.