Hand Painted Furniture

The idea of hand painted furniture might make you think of expensive antique Asian panels with scenes painted in gold. Or perhaps it reminds you of the bookcase you tried to paint white in college which turned out shabby but definitely not chic. Fortunately, there’s a fabulous hand painted furniture world in the middle, and getting familiar with it will help you add style and character to your home.

Why You Need a Piece of Hand Painted Furniture!

Adding painted bedroom furniture or incorporating a painted cabinet or table in your living or dining room is a great idea for several reasons.

• First, a sea of brown wood looks boring. Adding a hand painted dresser to a bedroom that has sizable storage pieces in it helps break up the monotony. In a living room with brown wood end tables, coffee table and maybe a storage cabinet, the same sea of brown can be broken up with some paint color. See the wonders of a hand painted bar cabinet for more on this!

• Second, a hand painted furniture piece gives you another element you can use to bring out the color palette you have chosen for the room or add a punch of color as an accent.

• Third, a hand painted table, dresser or cabinet can be a piece of art and a focal point for a room. As you’ll see below, there are multiple styles of hand painted furniture. You absolutely DO NOT need to be into farmhouse or shabby chic style to use a piece of striking or whimsical painted furniture in your room.

Three Styles of Hand Painted Furniture - Which Is Your Favorite?

1) Out with the Brown - Simple Solid Colors

Perhaps the most common type of hand painted furniture, the simple solid colored piece, is the result of big brown wooden pieces going out of style. An easy way to update these big brown pieces - dressers, armoires, buffet cabinets and tables - is to coat them in a single subtle paint color which coordinates with another element in the room such as a chair or window covering. In addition to making older pieces compatible with contemporary tastes, people have been painting furniture since the mid 1600s for reasons that still make sense today - to harmonize a room full of different woods or to hide an inferior wood (some people do this with modern laminate).

This hand painted desk is an example of painting a piece a single color which coordinates with the room. Note that the large mid-century drawer pulls also pick out the gold color in the rug and the window shade.

Alternatively, covering a brown piece of furniture in a loud statement paint color similar to this hand painted table, will add some energy and character to the room.

For solid color pieces, sometimes carvings, hardware or edges are highlighted with a darker tone or a metallic paint or leaf to give a more finished and interesting result.

On this hand painted dressing table, the overall color is a matte light blue, but edges and carvings are highlighted with gold

2) Classic Organic - Bringing the Outdoors In

Much of what we would consider traditional hand painted furniture is decorated with botanical themes or pastoral images. This is the group that would include “jappaning” where oriental scenes are painted in gold on a red or black background. Many folk art styles would also fall under this definition if they have flowers and leaves painted as a repeating motif. However, adding elements from nature doesn’t have to be traditional. Hand painted furniture can employ asymmetry, unusual colors and/or oversized representations of the natural world to show a more contemporary flair.

Sometimes the artistic painted design is applied directly to the finished wood and sometimes over a solid paint color.

This hand painted dressing table is intentionally asymmetrical in design so that the vines appear to be naturally crawling up the wood structure. In this case, the carvings and hardware have been minimized by painting them the same background color as the case.

On this hand painted dresser botanical decoration is used in a realistic rather than symbolic style (albeit enlarged). However, the expected separation of natural wood areas from paint is broken by making the flowers overlap some of the beautifully grained wood drawer fronts.

For the Karl the Fog Wall Mirror, the carved shape of the silhouette reminded me of the puffs and fingers of fog that curl around the hills of the San Francisco Bay Area. The fog in the city is affectionately named “Karl.” Hand painted clouds cover the flat surface and the edge is highlighted with gold to emphasize the shapes.

In the example of the Jungle Sisters Chairs, the modern clean lined silhouettes of the bentwood chairs form a canvas for hand painted house plants.

3) Contemporary Geometric - Graphic Designs with Edges

Hand painting furniture in a contemporary geometric style requires patience and precision. Often this style works best on modern furniture where the simple lines of the structure don’t get in the way of clean straight lines of paint work.

The De Chirico console table has a faux 3-D design on the front and sides which is created by varying the tones of gray between straight lined sections.

Designs with geometric shapes can also work on more traditional styles of furniture such as this coffee table which has a green and gold star hand painted onto the top surface.

This ombre bookshelf which is geometric in shape is hand painted with a range of blues that imperceptibly blend together to create a modern effect. Like the color of the sky from the horizon up, the darker blue is at the base. The effect is to make a these large hand painted shelves seem lighter and less dominating in the room.

The natural oak on these modern hand painted nightstands is juxtaposed with geometric patterns in a range of glossy grays.

How to Use Hand Painted Furniture In Your Home

Once you’ve decided what type of hand painted furniture is your favorite, here are some ways to incorporate it into your home.

Use a hand painted dresser as a focal point in a bedroom. If you’re a fan of non-matching nightstands, painting them the same color can connect them without making them an exact pair. Painted bedroom furniture is one of the most popular ways to add a unique flavor to a private space. Natural elements on a hand painted dresser can create a calming effect, or something more unusual such as this Queen Elizabeth I dresser can express a quirky sense of style.

Try a hand painted cocktail or display cabinet in a living room. This can be a fun addition to your room. Display whatever you like - it certainly doesn’t need to be china. When used as a drinks cabinet, a whimsical painted furniture piece adds to the experience.

Or if you need to hide some things away, a hand painted cabinet can be used to hold toys, games or A/V equipment. Remember you can always have a hand painted furniture piece that is part wood and part paint just like this sliding door console.

A hand painted table brings a visual break from all the wood in this entry. A shallow cabinet or wooden bench in a smaller entry would also be great places to incorporate a painted piece.

If you want to dip your toe in the hand painted furniture water, a little table is a great place to start. This hand painted side table adds color to the room and is a piece of art in itself.

Smaller pieces are definitely useful in many places. Wherever you need light, it’s an opportunity to add a little flair with a hand painted lamp. This hand painted table lamp brings warmth to an office. If you can use a hand painted desk, the room you work in will feel instantly less dreary.

This hand painted bookcase in black helps to pull together the chair color and other elements in this study. Some bookcases have contrast colors painted on the inside backs which can be a great way to add color without changing the whole furniture piece.

Now what are you waiting for? You’ll look at it more often than those shoes you bought, so invest the time to find a hand painted furniture piece that you love and add it to your home!