Upgrade children's room furniture

Children's rooms should be lively and creative and are therefore particularly suitable for playing with colors. From the quiet sleeping area to the inspiring play area, there is plenty of wooden furniture and endless possibilities for using colors. Refreshing a piece of furniture is the perfect opportunity to spruce up the existing color scheme.

Rest assured – all Little Greene paints are certified child safe, ensuring they contain no toxic ingredients. Choose between the wipe-clean Intelligent Matt Emulsion for the walls, the particularly hard-wearing Intelligent Satinwood and the Intelligent Eggshell for wooden elements. All finishes comply with the European Toy Color Directive*.

*Toy Color Directive, EN 71-3:1995

A difficult decision: choosing the colors for the furniture in the children's room

When choosing colors for your child's room, you should consider what you want the room to convey. You should also consider the light in the room and its influence on it. A shady area can benefit from a dab of light color on a piece of furniture; an area with a lot of natural light can also tolerate a darker shade of a rich color on a piece of furniture. For children with special sensory needs, choose soft colors so that the room can exude calm.

Overview of color types / finishes

Start small: Upgrading projects for children's furniture

If it's your first time painting a piece of furniture, it's better to start with a small project. A chair or rocking horse is an ideal project that can be completed in a day.

How to enhance lacquered furniture:

1. Sand the existing paint with medium-grit sandpaper so the new paint can adhere well. This also removes peeling paint.
2. Wipe with a damp cloth to remove dust and dirt. If the surface is greasy, clean it with lye and let the workpiece dry.
3. Prime the furniture with a coat of Intelligent ASP (All Surface Primer). This primer already has the color you want to paint with and ensures better adhesion of the paint so it lasts longer.
4. The best paint for upgrading furniture is Intelligent Satinwood; apply two coats, allowing 2 to 3 hours of drying time in between. If there are metal parts on your chair - this paint is ideal for painting both wood and metal!
5. Be methodical. It can easily happen that you miss an area on an object. Work from top to bottom and rotate the piece of furniture in all directions to check if you have missed anything.
6. Use the paint sparingly and don't overload the brush.
7. Once finished, wash the brush carefully with water.

Creative customization: Paint wooden elements to match upgraded furniture

Once you have painted a piece of furniture, you will surely find another element in the room that you can also paint in that color. This could be the skirting boards, the picture rail, the window frame or the door... This way you create a visual connection between the walls and the furniture and the color combination becomes more coherent.

So many closets: inspiration for painting children's closets

This cheerful chest of drawers in Marigold loosens up the neutral color combination and creates a strong color highlight. Take out the drawers to paint and decide whether you want to paint the handles the same color or a contrasting color. It looks dynamic if you choose two colors that are in opposite places on the color wheel. Marigold goes particularly well with the cool Bone China Blue – Pale on the walls and floor as well as the Bone China Blue stripes on the floor.

Sleepyhead: Upgrade headboards

In order to adapt the children's room to the child's age, everything does not always have to be completely refurnished. Even small projects can make a big difference and a freshly painted bed headboard makes a simple and effective statement.

For this checkerboard look, paint smaller squares in Intelligent Eggshell. Use contrasting colors like Olive Color, Carmine, Citrine, Pink Slip and Loft White.

Done quickly: paint behind the children's room furniture

To create the illusion of painted furniture, you can paint the wall behind an open shelf a bold color. This provides the perfect backdrop behind your child's treasures and is a subtle way to divide a room into areas.

Phthalo Green was used here as a fresh highlight next to shelves in French Grey used. For less exposed areas, use the very matt Absolute Matt Emulsion or Intelligent Matt if the wall surface is touched and needs to be wipeable.

Here you can learn more about our child-safe paints and get inspiration from us before you start your own improvement project.