Stripes on Furniture

Stripes on furniture — especially dressers — add texture and pattern to basic pieces.

There’s a tall, dark chest of drawers in our guest room. It’s mahogany and refinished with a high gloss surface I don’t like at all. That chest desperately needs a light color or perhaps a “stripes on furniture” treatment. I’ve been thinking pale green or ochre but then I saw the gray-striped chest created by stylish young New York designer, Sara Gilbane.

It’s actually a changing table in a sophisticated color for a baby’s room. It’s also a piece of furniture that moves the Gustavian gray furniture concept forward, modernizing  and punching it up against a gray and white tent-stripe wall. The texture is great and the tassel-drop handles so chic. The look would work in any bedroom and it’s making me think.

I adore gray-painted furniture but we’ve seen a lot of it over the past few years – one result of enthusiastic DIYers clearing out the thrift shops. We’ve also seen clever surface solutions from spray paint to old-fashioned milk paint. Now, there’s a frisson around a line of lime-based chalk paint launched by British special decorating effects guru Annie Sloan. Finally, shiny is out and matte is in – ruthlessly.

Another striped chest came along courtesy of Miles Redd, whose boldness and originality are always a treat. Let’s set aside the leather-upholstered door embellished with nail heads or the tongue-in-cheek retro hot-air balloon motif wallpaper. I’ll happily zoom in on the subtle vertical stripes on this chest of drawers. A simplified variation in almost any color scheme would be a showstopper.

Next month my life will change when we leave our Manhattan apartment where we’ve happily spent the past 20 years and move to our house in the country. Among other things, that means I’ll should be getting some of my furniture projects done. Nice to have a blog where ideas can be saved and shared.

(Source: saragilbaneinteriors.com, House Beautiful)

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