Whether you live in an apartment and are not allowed to paint your walls or are just looking for a quick update to your decor, consider painting your furniture. Furniture's portability and different shapes lend themselves well to sporting a single pop of color or an intricately detailed design. With a few color tweaks, painting furniture may lead to a whole new take on your home, sure to be more enjoyable than watching paint dry.
Jungle Fever
You may not be able to adopt that pet zebra or leopard you've always wanted, but it doesn't mean you have to go without the color scheme in your house. Look to your furniture as a canvas for an animal color scheme painting project. Select a piece of furniture without a cloth component, such as a rattan or wicker chair instead of a wood chair with a cotton chair pad. Choose paints that match the animal's hide, such as black and white for zebra or shades of orange, yellow and brown for a leopard. Start by painting the piece of furniture the lightest color, such as white or yellow. This will help with covering up mistakes during the process.
When the furniture is fully dry, use masking tape to create the animal's intricate designs. For a zebra, stretch stripes of masking tape up the chair's legs or on a diagonal on the table's surface. For a leopard's spots, cut blob shapes out of the tape and adhere them to the furniture. Paint with the next color directly over the furniture and taped areas. When everything is dry, peel off the tape, which will reveal the animal's stripes or spots in the lighter color.
Plastic Fantastic
After a long summer's use, you may be getting ready to place those plastic Adirondack chairs and cheap small tables at your curb for recycling, but think again. Plastic furniture lends itself well to a galactic color scheme design if you're looking for something dark and celestial to add to your home. You'll need Krylon, an aerosol spray paint made specifically for plastic (if you try to use another kind of aerosol for wood or metal, it will crack and chip right off your furniture). Krylon comes in a number of colors; you'll need something dark like blue or purple and white or yellow if your furniture isn't already light.
Spray paint any non-white or very light furniture a full coat of the white or yellow paint and let dry. Cover the furniture in those foil star stickers teachers use on children's reports, then cover the furniture in a coat of the dark paint. Once the dark paint dries, peel the stickers off; they'll leave behind bright white or yellow stars on your furniture. An additional option is to actually create designs with the stars, such as the Big Dipper or the Milky Way.
Magical Moods
While you may not be able to create a tropical spa oasis or a heart-pounding speedway in the center of your living room, you can transform your furniture into mood-setting pieces by painting them particular colors. Organizations such as the Bloomsburg University Virtual Training Help Center, who study the effect of color on moods, claim that certain colors can trigger emotions in the human mind. If you'd like to subconsciously experience feelings of good luck, youth, renewal and vigor, for example, you may want to paint your furniture green. If you're looking for something a little bit more amped up, a red color scheme may bring feelings of desire, strength, speed and a faster heart beat.
While you may not be able to envision (or stomach) a room painted with furniture in an entirely red or any other single color scheme, picking and choosing which furniture to paint may give you the same response. Consider the focal point of your room. If it's a large wooden rocking chair, for example, perhaps painting just the chair in a single bright color will work, as it may immediately draw the eye and bring out the associated emotions.
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