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How-to Pick a Furniture Paint Color: Step by Step

Painting furniture is a bigger commitment than painting a wall. Why?

Furniture is an important part of your room, likely more expensive than most things, and not easy to replace.

So it’s really important to assess if you should paint the furniture, before slapping on a new color or even painting over stained wood furniture.

Once you decide “ok I’m ready to paint this furniture”, are you now feeling nervous about picking the right paint color? I FEEL you!

It took YEARS to decide to paint my very large stained entertainment center and finally choose the color (you’ll see what I decided to do later).

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Large Stained Entertainment Center Prepped for Painting

As part of my decision making process, I created an easy and inexpensive way to test the paint color, before you actually paint furniture!

I’m here to teach you that process and help you hone in on the perfect paint color.

But before that, you may want to read Should You Paint Over Stained Wood? How-to Decide

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Should I Paint this Furniture or Not?

Pin It for Later!

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Contains hand selected products, with affiliate marketing links where I may earn a small commission if a purchase is made. {full disclosure here}

Tips on Choosing a Paint Color for Furniture

Luckily for you, I’ve written an entire post on how to chose a paint color and have a free guide you can download: Are You Making These 4 Paint Color Mistakes?

If you feel lost when it comes ti choosing paint colors, start there and then come back to this post! 

Where to start finding a furniture paint color:

Look at EVERYTHING in the room first because it will help you hone in on a color.

  • Do you want the paint color to match other items in the room, the wall color or be totally different?
  • Think about if you want the furniture to blend into the room or stand out?
  • Take mental note of the undertones of other items in the room: warm or cool (read this guide on paint undertones).
  • If the furniture is up against a wall, do you want the paint to be lighter or darker than the wall color?
  • What is the furniture sitting on: wood, carpet or a rug. What type of paint color will look best.
  • Is the sheen of the paint going to be shinier than the walls?

Something to note, paint chip samples are usually a low sheen. As you go up in sheen paint colors get a little bit darker.

Even if you paint the furniture the same color as the wall, but in say a semi-gloss sheen, the furniture will be darker. Keep that in mind!

Choosing a Paint Color for a Large Piece of Furniture

Painting a larger piece of furniture becomes more critical because it takes more visual space in the room! Plus the color of the piece will shift the other colors in the room.

Also, painting a large piece takes a lot more time. You don’t want to regret your color decision because repainting can be a major pain!

When you get it right, it’s amazing! See how I transformed a piece in my dining room, painted the furniture in my bedroom and how these pieces now MAKE the room.

How should you begin deciding on a color for your furniture? Try out a sample first! Yes, I am sure you’ve heard about this before but have you done it for furniture?

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Deciding the Paint Color of Furniture
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Don’t Use Paint Chips to Decide Your Furniture Color

Whatever you do, don’t choose the paint color from those tiny little paint chips from the store.

Have you done this? OK, I’ll admit that I USED to do this. My go-to method was to take 3 chip samples and tape them to the furniture to see they look.

Now I NEVER do this and use the method I’m going to teach you instead. You’ll always get the paint color right!

The Right Way to Test a Furniture Paint Color

Think about it. Paint samples are AFFORDABLE! Usually $8 or less from all of the major paint brands.

It takes a little more time to sample the paint colors the way I am teaching you, but it will save you time and money in the long run.

If you choose the wrong color, you will have wasted a lot of time and money if you need to re-paint.

Follow this process to create furniture paint color samples and save yourself a lot of time, trouble and heartache later!

Create Furniture Paint Color Sample Boards

Truth be told, I originally only purchased one color to sample because I thought it was what I wanted.

You’ll see what happened because I went with a color I found on Pinterest and didn’t follow the tips I share above.

We live and learn. When you know better, do better goes the saying.

Paint Color Testing Supplies

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Sample Paint Colors on Foam Core Boards
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Apply Paint Sample with a Brush

Step 1: Decide how many samples to paint on the foam boards.

Step 2: Apply paint to one side of each form core board with a brush.

Step 3: When paint is dry, flip over to apply another color to test.

Step 4: Let fully dry, before starting the testing process.

Since my armoire is quite large, I decided to paint 4 each 8 x 10 board samples. It took about 5 minutes and I let them dry OVERNIGHT. 

The samples need to be completely dry, so you don’t transfer any wet paint onto other objects. 

If you don’t want to wait to flip the board, you can paint the two or three colors at one time.

At a later date, I used the SAME sample boards and flipped them over to try a new color.

Test with Pre-Painted Sample Colors

The paint color I fell in love with is Boothbay Gray from Benjamin Moore. It’s this great color that is a blued gray, with a hint of green.

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In a small format, it seemed like I could use it and it would coordinate throughout my lower level. 

After applying this color to sample boards and testing it, I learned a lot about how colors look different on your phone or computer!

This whole process should be done over at LEAST 24 hours, but ideally on sunny and cloudy days so you see how the paint changes as the light changes.

Use sample boards in the following way:

  1. Look at it propped or taped with painter’s tape on the furniture itself. I’ve found mounting putty to be way better than tape!
  2. Understand the value (light or dark) by holding it against other paint colors.
  3. See what it looks like against white (moulding or white walls).
  4. Try it against key fabrics in the room.
  5. Test the color against rugs or flooring.
  6. Look at it in all different types of light: daytime (sunny and cloudy) and nighttime (with lights on and off).
  7. Pay attention to the items in the room that won’t or can’t change. Make sure the color still works.

You can see that this color is light and will be a MAJOR change from the dark stain.

Next, I tried it up against a warm white wall with direct light to see how that changes things. It looks REALLY gorgeous against the white paint color in my foyer.

Why I wanted to test Boothbay Gray against my other painted furniture (chalk paint tutorial) pieces is to see if it’s lighter or darker (the value) and it is definitely lighter!

Again, you can see it will be much lighter than both of the painted pieces downstairs in my home. This is giving me some concern.

After these quick and simple color tests, I’m starting to feel this may not be the right color so I moved to the really important tests.

Seeing how the color works with my fabrics, which dictate the whole color story of the room

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Testing Paint Colors Against Fabrics

How does Boothbay Gray look with the existing fabrics? For this test, I took this picture at night with my iPhone (lamp lights on) to see how it changed the color.

While it looks great with paisley fabric, I’m not loving it with the blue Swiss dot fabric. I have an entire chair covered in this fabric…

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Ultimately, there is too much green in Boothbay Gray and it won’t work with what I can’t change in the room.

While it does “go” with the fabric, but I am concerned with the armoire being so large it will really be obvious how green it looks!

Hmmm, should I paint it white like the cabinet pictured above? I really don’t want to do that.

Try Paint Colors Online in Your Room

Before buying another paint sample, I tried an online tool from Benjamin Moore to see other options.

Other than creating an account, the process to try a new paint color was pretty easy!

Just upload your own photo and start painting the area that you want to change. Benjamin Moore makes it straight forward and you can save your pictures.

Here are the options I tried:

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Testing Out Paint Color Options Online

Furniture Paint Colors I Tried:

Click to order a peel and stick sample for your house!

In this exercise, you can REALLY see how green Boothbay Gray would look in my room.

Plus I’ve painted my ceiling a color from Valspar called: Winter in Paris to further complicate matters!

All of the items were planned together and installed together. I had my current furniture reupholstered to work in unison and chose the paint colors to work with the fabrics. That’s why selecting a color for the armoire / entertainment center is very complicated!

Change one thing and the rest may need to change 🙂 Mama doesn’t have a budget for all of that right now!

What Color Would You Choose?

Out of the 4 above, what paint color would you choose? Post in the comments below!

Based on this process I decided to put this project on pause. Now I am thinking I need to go about this in a different manner.

My plan is to recover or buy new furniture overtime. When I do, I’ll find a color that works with that fabric.

That’s the best way to decorate a room – with a plan!

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OR I may choose to do white or a gray. We shall see, but the jury is out on this one! What a great exercise for me to go through avoiding a major mistake.

I hope seeing my paint color test process and my decision points along the way will help you find that perfect color for your furniture piece, before you paint!

What Color Did I Paint the Armoire (entertainment center)?

UPDATE: I’ve been slowly making over the family room and here is what I decided to do!

You can see I’ve done a LOT. The drapes, lighting, sofas, coffee table, and rug are all new! Shop my home here.

The walls are painted a new color Sherwin Williams Pearly White SW 7009

It’s such a pretty shade of white and I talk all about how to mix paint colors on white walls with white trim in this post.

I ended up painting the entertainment center Sherwin Williams, Repose Gray SW 7015 and then did an antique glaze wash over the top.

This gave it so much character and it now looks like a brand new piece of furniture!

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Ikea Furniture Painted to Look Like Driftwood

Oh and I painted the mantel to look like cast stone and plus tiled over the marble surround.

I painted somenew chairs and painted an inexpensive IKEA dresser to look like driftwood!

Here are those paint makeover projects:

Plus I painted the cabinet opposite this piece and filled it with a bunch of treasures from my travels and old books for color.

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This color is LOT like some of the colors I considered from Benjamin Moore. What is this color you ask? Mineral Deposit from Sherwin Williams.

It’s definitely a paint color that shifts depending on the light and surroundings.

When it’s really sunny it looks more blue than green and at night or on cloudy days it looks like a gray green!

That’s why it’s SO important to test paint colors the way I showed you and make sure they are perfect BEFORE you apply them to the walls or your furniture!

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Painting this piece of furniture completely transformed it and added so much character!

What is important to pay attention to is that I found the color in the new Pottery Barn Rug.

This paint color I also used in my guest bedroom makeover too! BEST Blue-Green Bedroom Paint Color: Cottagecore Reveal

Hope this helps and isn’t it fun to see after all that time and testing what I did?

Check out these other great posts about painting and color:

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Until next time…

Porch Daydreamer

Tracey

18 Comments

  1. glory johnston says:

    I am not usually afraid to try, because you can always redo. But I love your house, and I think
    I thing the Overcoat or the Boothbay Grey gives some depth.

  2. Glen Becker says:

    Grrrrr. Timber Wolfe for me.

  3. Jan Anderson says:

    I agree with the comment about Overcoat. It’s much less of a contrast than the current wood stain, but it makes a great statement. Jan

  4. Marina Gray gets my vote- but your taste is impeccable, so whatever you choose will be perfect!

  5. I too vote for Overcoat. The piece is large and grounds the room and there needs to be some contrast there instead of more light or pastel tones.

  6. I like Marina Gray the best. I think it looks great with your existing furniture and the other colors in your room.

  7. I like Marina Gray or Timber Wolf. Both are gorgeous.

  8. I like Timber Wolf the best. It is soft and calming but yet makes a statement. The intensity and depth of color is not too light or too dark. . It coordinates w the other pieces in the room nicely (especially the wood furniture)! Good Luck!

    1. Thanks, Debi…I’ll be looking at fabrics soon (for the chairs) to see what I can find that works!

  9. I like Overcoat best of the 4 choices. It is darker than the rest so offers a bit of contrast yet doesn’t clash with the ceiling or other colors in your room. I totally get why you want to wait though! You have to love it 😊

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