Painting a Two Tone Color Scheme

by At Home With The Ellingtons

6 Materials

$50

6 Hours

Medium

Painting a two tone color scheme on French Provincial furniture may seem intimidating if you haven't tried it before but I can assure you it's much easier than you think.

This dresser set (chest of drawers and night stand) had been left in storage for a while and damage to the top but was otherwise in good shape.

When I plan on painting a two tone color scheme, I always start out by painting the entire piece with the lighter of the two colors which will help to have straight clean lines. In this case I painted the drawers an old white. I applied as many coats as necessary to get the coverage I desired. By the way, it usually takes 3 coats. As you can see, the drawers are pretty like this but some of the detail gets lost in the monochromatic color scheme.

After allowing the paint to dry I started painting out the details with a linen colored paint. I use an angled brush to keep my lines clean. Here you can see how the second color of paint brings out the detail. This was my first coat of paint and it needed a total of 3 coats for proper coverage. For any areas that needed touch up I use a small craft brush (like kids paint with).

And the final look. Nice clean lines show the beautiful details. Original hardware was cleaned and put back on.

If you are a beginner then you might want to start out using lighter color choices like in the previous pictures. When using darker colors like this chocolate brown you have to be spot on in your technique or every little flaw will be magnified.