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mdkrhe64

Does anyone still like wood toned furniture? (non painted furniture)

Mary E
6 years ago

I'm just curious. I follow some Facebook groups and painting vintage pieces in chalk paint is all the rage. I've painted pieces before myself. I've never "antiqued" a piece myself (paint it then rough it up to make it look shabby chic), and usually only have painted to upgrade a piece that was not in the best shape or to match a color scheme.

Nothing at ALL wrong with this. I think these people have gorgeous homes and decorating styles and the furniture always looks amazing. I'm just wondering if people actually still like wood tones these days. I am OBSESSED with vintage wood furniture (coffee tables, dressers, vanities, ect). Am I alone? Show me your favorite non painted wood pieces! Or show me a piece you would like to get one day.

I would just love to stumble upon a beautiful antique vanity. Sigh Maybe one day!

Or a gorgeous MCM piece!

Featured Answer
  • juddgirl2
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    I love painted furniture and have several pieces in my home, but also have a lot of stained wood furniture. This is an antique bed I found left behind in the barn of our new home (after scrubbing off several years worth of dirt and polishing it up a bit with some Old English).

    I thought about painting it but ended up liking the contrast and keeping it as is.

    ETA - in this same room I have an unfinished antique Irish pine table used as a desk and an antique dresser/mirror that is half painted and half stained wood.

    Comments (66)

    • jewelisfabulous
      6 years ago

      I can't wait until the grayed out painted and stained furniture trend is well in the past.

    • joaniepoanie
      6 years ago

      After 30 years I was tired of my pecan (probably veneer) bedroom set. I didn't want to spend $ on new furniture because we plan to move and I won't take it with me. But I wanted a new look. I tried staining it dark and I was not successful so I gave up and painted it white.........I actually really love the look...it's airy and clean looking. Then we redid the LR and I bought some espresso pieces (not expensive) and while I like the look ok I have to dust 2-3 times a week....grrrr! The older I get the less work I want to do....so I only see light colored furniture in my future.

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    • Fun2BHere
      6 years ago

      I like beautiful wood. I only have one painted piece which is an armoire that sits on a natural wood base and is mixed with other wood pieces in the room. I don't think beautiful, well-made wood pieces will ever be completely out of style. On the other hand, I like painted moldings and painted bathroom and kitchen cabinets.

    • robo (z6a)
      6 years ago

      I will say I do see some of the before pictures of the chalk paint cottage industry people in my area and some of the befores look like beautiful pieces with intact finishes, I do think that is quite a shame.

    • blfenton
      6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      No painted wood in our house and the wood furniture that we do have I would never paint. It just isn't something that I like.

      Although having said that - our kitchen cabinets are off-white painted maple but our bathroom cabinets are natural maple.

    • Fori
      6 years ago

      I really don't mind painted stuff. I just don't think painted-to-look-crappy is a nice look. I don't like nice antiques being painted over in service to a trend I don't appreciate, but an antique with damage can certainly be kept in service with paint. I'd just rather it be painted nicely instead of changing from trashed stained wood to trashy painted wood. Why paint something in such a way as to look like it's been left at the curb for 8 months?


      What? ME judgmental? nahhhhh couldn't be. :)

    • Rita / Bring Back Sophie 4 Real
      6 years ago

      I love brown furniture. Beautiful woods, like walnut, mahogany, fruitwoods, pine- I like them all. I also like painted furniture, like Gustavian pieces. A mix is always appealing to me.

    • aputernut
      6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      yep, my dressers & night stands are rock maple have them for 55 yrs. they are beautiful, takes 4 men to life my triple dresser without drawers in it, they don't make them like this anymore all drawers have dust covers and are dove tailed, got rid of the canopy double bed yrs. ago however was part of the set. and dining rm. set and living rm tables are med. pecan

    • rosesstink
      6 years ago

      I adore wood. Wood furniture, wood cabinets, wood floors, wood panelling, wood trim. Not so fond of pine. It drives me crazy when people paint nice old pieces. If you want to paint something, find some piece of crap to paint. Also makes me crazy when people alter antiques in other ways to fit their needs. Cutting down the legs on a table to make a coffee table for example. That (original) table might have been exactly what I was looking for but now it is gone forever.

    • eandhl2
      6 years ago

      I can understand if someone really wants a piece painted, then paint it. The first picture the OP posted has inlaid and I think it would be terrible to paint it.


    • mnzinnia
      6 years ago

      My 35 year old son is closing on his first house. After observing Ikea casegoods construction and contrasting it with older real wood furniture, he stated he wanted some older pieces. I had just come across this dining set at a thrift store for $140

      and he liked it. I'll be hauling it several hundred miles to him. Maybe redo the chairs in the striped fabric? Should be great for his circa 1960 home.


      I like well made wood furniture and have some of the Drexel Meredian that my Mom bought in 1963. My other son has her Paul Mccobb planner group pieces in his midmod home. We are grateful for her good taste!

      That said,I also like light and colorful rooms that include some light or painted wood and recently purchased and painted a small oak china cabinet that sat for months at the thrift store. Shabby look..no, painted...yes.

    • Lisa G
      6 years ago

      I really like stained wood but in my home it's difficult to find stained furniture that doesn't clash. I LOVE that MCM dresser you posted but the finish is very orangey and I'm not sure it would look nice in my house because I have gray-brown floors. We're having major difficulty finding a dining table that has a neutral stain that would look nice.

    • User
      6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      I love beautiful wood.

      That said, my DR set is Canadian alder - a light wood with very little grain that tends to yellow with age. We don't use the DR that often, so I can't really justify replacing it.

      I have refinished many wood pieces over the years but I dread stripping the poly off this alder.

      I might enamel my set aqua or turquoise. I don't know. Otherwise I would do a walnut stain. But the wood is lacking in character. And 100% of the old finish would need to come off.

      What to do...

    • Kathy Yata
      6 years ago

      All my wood furniture is stained, most is vintage 1950s-1960s. I built the aquarium stand in 2012, it is stained deep brown.

      No issues with painting wood though. If it's in horrible shape or truly hideous then paint away. I've painted my beat up kitchen and bathroom cabinets, the beat up luan hollow core doors and a Moderne sewing machine desk with lots of missing veneer and water damage.

    • artemis_ma
      6 years ago

      I love natural wood. I have a couple painted bookcases, but I also have a bunch of inherited furniture from the parents and grandparents. I'd never dream of painting them.

    • amykath
      6 years ago

      Tnfarmhouse, that is one gorgeous bed and I love your room! The color of the walls, the chandy, the window! Oh wow!

    • kai615
      6 years ago

      We have just about only wood furniture here. We have done our remodel with lots of reclaimed wood for built-ins, ceilings, shelves, floors. I have painted a floor using chalk paint...old home, it works nicely.


      But anyway, about 9 months ago I found this beautiful antique dresser in a second hand shop up the street from me. It was wood, missing its knobs, but the shape structure, build, and color of wood was gorgeous. I asked the woman running the shop how much, she couldn't believe I wanted to buy it. "But I haven't painted it yet",she said. "Why would you paint it it?","because we paint any furniture we get to sell". So she ran around, made a bunch of calls while I shopped, still in disbelief that I would buy such a thing unpainted. She finally comes back to me and wants $250. Which I agree was a decent price e for the piece, because it was nice, but at this point after hearing her on the phone (I assume with her partner), I am starting to feel cheated already. I leave.

      Three weeks later I go back in. It is painted a hideous grey allover. It has cheap fake glass knobs..... seriously, they are plastic "glass knobs". AND the price after all their hard work is $190.


      I have tried to not shop there again, but my hubby and I were looking for something and stopped in in a last ditch attempt to find it last month and the still hadn't sold the dresser. I almost said something on my way out.

    • WalnutCreek Zone 7b/8a
      6 years ago

      I love wood furniture and on furniture. I am not a fan of painted wood, except occasionally on built ins.

    • Hockeymom84
      6 years ago

      Yep!

    • OutsidePlaying
      6 years ago

      TNfarmhouse, what a gorgeous bed and room! Hope to see more of your new Tennessee house soon!

    • Sueb20
      6 years ago

      Love the dining table and chairs and the bed! I had to think about it, because I don't have strong feelings about painted wood one way or the other, but I have only a few painted wood pieces here: a desk, one bureau, and a set of nightstands. In our beach house, though, we have tons of painted furniture: end tables, nightstands, kitchen chairs, bookcases. It all feels right in a beach cottage but wouldn't work well in my 1920s suburban colonial, which has a more sort of "masculine" look.

    • artemis_ma
      6 years ago

      Kalindi, so sad...

    • artemis_ma
      6 years ago

      Kalindi, so sad...

    • aprilneverends
      6 years ago

      I love stained wood and have almost everything wood stained (except for one piece that's pine plus black..I think it's vintage Pottery Barn, found on Craigslist..that's a huge desk purchased for DS)

      But I know that painted furniture has many centuries of its own history, and can be gorgeous in its own right

      it really depends on the wood, the style, the piece...and how the whole place is working together

      for example i wanted stained cabs but the house called for painted. actually it called for stained but I really wanted wood floors, so had to choose which of the surfaces ends up being stained as the kitchen is small

      I love mixing and matching..I'd always go for 80-90 % stained..the rest can be painted, lacquered, etc

      my favorite woods are walnut and teak, I love mcm, so I'd never dream of painting them

      some wood is too pretty to be painted. or to be fully painted

      i do have vintage dresser that's walnut plus some white paint on detailing..somebody refurbished and sold it like that, and it's pretty cool. it also cost very cheap, it was just when mcm pieces started coming back again, several years ago. it definitely has character..and reminds me of a story of getting it that was a bit weird one.

      and we found later an old desk in a vintage shop in LA..also, painted top, the rest is stained. same money..very cheap for a good piece, already refurbished. Now in my DD's room

      so i'm not shying away from anything, but stained is gorgeous to me, and would be my first choice

      i dislike artificially distressed techniques

      in short, as in many other things..it's more about how then what

      thfarmhousefixin, I hope to see your reveal one day..that room is gorgeous

      loved reading all the comments!!

    • jill302
      6 years ago

      Prefer a mix of painted and stained. Although if I had to choose between painted and stained I would go with stained wood

    • nosoccermom
      6 years ago

      Oh, but then there are these "provincial" wood pieces with the fake fly dirt or whatever those dots represent.

    • jamesh28
      6 years ago

      To me, natural wood is almost always preferable to paint, and you'd only apply paint to dress up lower quality (or functional) wood. Trends come and go, but good natural wood will always look good!

    • juddgirl2
      6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      Thank you, aktillery, outside, and april!

      We ended up recently selling our first TN farmhouse property and buying this one that was move in ready and a newer build (but made to look old with reclaimed materials). We still have boxes everywhere and unpacking has been slow since I'm back at work but I'll post more pics as I get the rooms set up.

      This house has all white walls and trim and I really like the contrast with darker furniture (whether natural, stained, or painted dark).

      Here's another room I quickly and temporarily set up for my visiting DD and grandbaby though. No natural or stained wood furniture but I think the painted antique iron bed and crib nicely complement the wood floors. I love this look too.

    • Kitch4me
      6 years ago

      I have both in my home, I love the look of old chippy paint!

      tnfarmhouse, I love your rooms!

    • Rita / Bring Back Sophie 4 Real
      6 years ago

      Laurel Bern just did a post on dining room furniture and she shows many beautiful images of painted furniture mixed with stained furniture. Here is a link in case anyone is interested https://laurelberninteriors.com/2017/06/21/help-please-husband-wants-matched-set-dining-room-furniture/  .

    • nan-nan
      6 years ago

      I have a house full of different eras and colours of wood furniture. Some of them are antiques. Sometimes I look at my 80s colonial pine furniture and think it could be freshened up with paint. But then I remember the laborious hours spent in stripping hideous paint off of some garage sale antique finds and I simply can't do it.

      It's a decor trend that will come and go. I can freshen things up with changing wall paint and accessories instead.

    • Bonnie
      6 years ago

      I like both. In our very traditional home we have mostly mahogany and cherry furniture. Our vacation home, also a traditional style, has a painted Duncan Phyfe dining table and chairs (bought it that way) and additional chairs that I painted to match the set. It just seems so right there, but would not work at all here.

    • arcy_gw
      6 years ago

      Yesterday was Occasional Sale day in a near by town. All the shops had many many painted pieces. Most from the 70's but a few antiques too. This was by far my favorite. Nothing competes with rich clear wood grain!!

    • Sunnysmom
      6 years ago

      Ummm, I like it to much, like so much I should probably seek therapy.

      I currently have a buffet and a sideboard in my closet because I am just not ready to let them go, maybe if I could find them a good home, you know one where they won't be chalk painted... ( Ok and maybe also because I really don't want to deal with CL)


    • mem2014
      6 years ago

      I was just about to pull the trigger on having a solid wood pecan dining room set that my parents owned professionally painted. After reading this thread I am not so sure :-( I truly don't have a dining set in my farmhouse that I am renovating and to this date, no other painted furniture. All the work and money has been spent resurfacing and painting rooms, trim and plaster work. While the set has great pieces, the nondescript wood color and gold velvet cushions don't work too well.
      After trying to sell the set at an estate sales, I went down the path of painting with professionals and it will cost a pretty penny. Any and all comments scoldings appreciated :-)



    • Sylvia Gordon
      6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      Back in the early to middle seventies, antiquing was a fad. About 10 years later, I went piano shopping with a friend. There was a place in Dallas that restored fine old pianos. Not realizing what we were getting into (prices in the tens of thousands LOL), we went to this company's workshop/warehouse. It was fabulous. They had Steinways & Gulbranson's, they had mahogany concert grands, they had everything! and they were restoring all of them to their original beauty. The one they were working on that day was a mahogany Steinway grand from the 1920s . It had been antiqued turquoise, and the black keys had been antiqued gold. Although the piano was way out of my friends price league, the restorers promised us they would put it back to its original beautiful mahogany finish.

    • Sylvia Gordon
      6 years ago

      Mem, I was so transported by the way back machine that I forgot to answer your question. You might look at the other thread about making a formal dining set look informal. Lots of good ideas on that thread. My thought is that painting will Salvage a piece that is crummy, cheap, scarred, burned, Etc. Nice-looking wood in a nice piece should be preserved. Another thing to remember is that you don't have to put all the furniture in your dining room. With today's smaller room sizes, great big China cabinets can sometimes overwhelm everything else. My china cabinet is in the living room with all my favorite doodads in it. You can use it for books, photographs, seashells, crystals, Etc. I would change the upholstery to something more modern and maybe a bit minimalist, or maybe a bit wild, like a splashy turquoise and orange print, and use window treatments in the same fabric.

    • WalnutCreek Zone 7b/8a
      6 years ago

      The set is beautiful just as it is. To paint it would be detrimental in many ways. I agree with Sylvia reupholster the seats with a fabric that you love.

    • PRO
      Anglophilia
      6 years ago

      All my furniture is English antique wood - not "vintage", but antique. Most is mahogany but one Biedermeier piece is birch, there is chestnut chest, and a corner cabinet in old maple. I have never in my life worried about my furniture all "matching" or matching my floors!

      Once upon a time I did have painted furniture. It was when I was young, newly married and having babies and we had no money. I would take vintage cast-offs and paint them. It was what one did in those days - it sort of made a "silk purse out of a sow's ear" thing.

      Whether to paint modern wood furniture (anything post WWII) is always a conundrum. It would be a travesty to paint a fine Baker or Kittinger or Biggs piece of mahogany furniture. But cheaper furniture? Often the style is just so "wrong" - it's often not worth the bother.

    • eastautumn
      6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      I love natural wood furniture, but am not at all opposed to painting cheap or damaged wood furniture to extend its life. I'm often shocked that some gorgeous, unpainted wood antiques sit unsold on Craigslist and other local message boards just because they're not the current trend. I snatched this piece up today off of our local Craigslist after eyeing it for weeks, and it's even more gorgeous in person than in the photos.

      We got it to replace an ugly drop-front desk that my in-laws gave us because our daughter used to love to sit at it when she visited their house (before they downsized). That one is painted in an absolutely hideous style, circa the 1960s I think, to make it look like it's covered with dirty fingerprints along all of the drawer edges. My husband has always hated it, but I thought a fresh coat of paint might make him hate it less. I never did get around to re-painting it, and thankfully my daughter said she likes this one better so we can let the other one go. Hopefully someone who loves painted furniture will be able to turn the other one into something pretty.

    • cacocobird
      6 years ago

      I love natural wood. I have one piece that is painted, but all the rest is solid wood. I've had it for a long time.

    • melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/
      6 years ago

      I prefer wood-toned, but I have three pieces where the wood is so damaged that paint is likely in their future.

    • writersblock (9b/10a)
      6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      I love wood furniture that was meant to be wood, but while there are a lot of justified complaints in this thread about needlessly painting good wood surfaces, I also see a lot of stuff that has gone the other way--paint-grade wood that was always meant to be painted that people have diligently scraped and "restored" to a hideous mis-matched wood finish.

      I'd never, ever paint my quarter-sawn walnut bed, but it pains me just as much to see things like Hoosier cabinets that were originally painted (some were done in wood, many were painted--it depends) stripped down to a lousy poly-finish when it was meant to be a nice mint and cream, or blue and white.

      My parents had a beautiful carved wood desk that was painted a nice ebonized black from the day it was made, and as a child I had a nice old telephone stand as a nightstand, but then later on my dad fell victim to the old "It's WOOD; don't paint it" school and neither piece ever looked as nice again.

    • Sylvia Gordon
      6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      My grandfather was a carpenter. He was born in the 1880s. I don't know if that had anything to do with his taste or if it was the fact that he was a carpenter, but he did like nice wood finishes. He was of the school of thought that baseboards, door frames, and crown molding should be walnut or mahogany. When I was a little bitty girl, he made me a dresser, using a small washstand as a guide. My dresser had two wide drawers and a mirror. Papa made it out of scraps. The body of the dresser was an old Philco mahogany TV cabinet, the drawer fronts were really nice Walnut, the side pieces were some kind of veneer that eventually bubbled and buckled, and the supports for the mirror were probably fir. I got so excited when I saw it that I threw a fit and I *had* to take it home right away. The mirror frame was not yet finished, it was raw wood. The drawer fronts and side pieces were finished walnut, and the top was mahogany. Papa made my father promise to finish it. When I was 16 years old, it still was in its original condition...except for the small Beatles sticker in the corner of the mirror. I painted the dresser white. My mother shook her head and said, 'I'm glad Papa it's not here to see you painting that bewwwtiful wood." I still have that dresser. It is still white.

    • Sylvia Gordon
      6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      I too love those old Hoosiers in white with red trim, jadeite green, etcetera.

    • Indigo Rose
      6 years ago

      I'm firmly in the I love beautiful wood camp, but have two tall narrow pantry cabinets that were originally painted which I need to repaint. Other than those two pieces, which can stand alone or attach together with hardware, my other pieces are all antique or vintage except several Stickley ones bought new. Despite all the "brown furniture hate" we hear so much about, in my area they aren't giving away quality furniture cheaply, and my Craigslist has had nothing but junk every time I've looked.

    • eastautumn
      6 years ago

      There's definitely a LOT of junk on our local Craigslist too, but as long as it's priced to sell I'm okay with that. In addition to the wood desk we picked up on our Craigslist run yesterday, we also got an antique lamp that's been listed for months that I'm sure by an reasonable person's standards would be considered junk... missing socket, cracked marble base, no shade, among other fixable and not fixable flaws. But my husband is handy so he'll fix the things that can be fixed, and the rest of the flaws just add character (I think-- I'm sure a lot of people will still think it's ugly!). But I love that it's gaudy brass features match our gaudy brass ceiling fixtures.

    • RedDogsCrafts
      6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      I love working with natural wood grains and patterns. I build custom Industrial style furniture using both warm natural wood and cold steel. I'm not a fan of painting over wood, hardly even a fan of staining it. I prefer to use wood that has naturally beautiful color and patterns and emphasize it. If I do use a coating its usually a clear epoxy or tung oil because I feel it increases the character of the natural wood. Here are some examples of what I consider to be beautiful natural wood.

      Douglas fir with Epoxy resin


      Redwood with Epoxy resin

      Douglas fir with Tung oil

    • woodteam5
      6 years ago

      I find that I am not liking antique wood furniture like I used to and have sold off all but one golden oak cammode/dresser that I am starting to think might have to go. I bought a 1960s french provincial dining hutch, donated the top and painted the bottom bright gloss red (never really was one for chalk paint) that gets tons of complements. I still like and appreciate the look of wood and would not paint a true quality antique. But it just doesn't seem to be my style anymore.

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