How to use Annie Sloan paint to create colourful accents that match your rug
Up-cycling a piece of furniture is a fantastic way to add colour to your interior and to mirror colours already present in your modern rug.
If you are a thrifty furniture shopper and love to rescue tired gems you’ve found in a second hand shop or online forum you will be familiar with this activity! But if you are someone who has recently updated their interior and introduced a modern rug you might want to link in some of your current furniture pieces to the colour scheme to make even more impact and you could do this by even simply repainting an old picture frame.
Annie Sloan offers a fantastic palette of colours and her chalk paint has a soft and matte texture on wooden pieces. Here are some Annie Sloan favourites that we think would go beautifully with some of our rugs.
Full Colour Coordination
If you like your interior to be well colour co-ordinated, you can paint so pieces of your furniture the same colour as your rug. For instance, one of our clients matched her furniture with her Aqua Teal Sea rug by painting her side tables colours from the rug. You could do this with the Annie Sloan shades “Provence” and “Giverny”.
Aqua Teal Sea rug paired with “Provence” and “Giverny” by Annie Sloan Chalk Paints
Pick and Match
Rather than going for the predominant colour in your rug, choose one of the smaller blocks of colour to accentuate with your furniture piece. For instance, our Kaleidoscope rug has a couple of small triangles of teal which really pop out of the rug’s darker hues. This was combined in such a lovely way with the door of a TV cabinet painted in “Giverny” chalk paint.
Kaleidoscope Rug paired with “Giverny” by Annie Sloan Chalk Paint
Create Accent Walls
Another way of using Annie Sloan’s paints in your interior is to paint your walls. She has a range of wall paints in beautiful colours that match her furniture paints. There are so many ways to introduce colour on your walls that will compliment your designer rug.
Going for something eye-catching like taking a colour from the rug and painting all of the walls in that colour creates such a unique and personal style of decor. Here our After Matisse Rug is paired with “Provence” shade which creates a bright, spacious yet striking interior.
After Matisse rug with “Provence” by Annie Sloan Chalk Paint
But you don’t need a large room to experiment with colour on your walls. This lovely small Spanish apartment is uplifted by matching the reds in our After Matisse Rug with the shade “Emperor’s Silk”. Adding a statement colour to your walls in an apartment creates a beautiful, cosy and original interior.
After Matisse rug with “Emperor’s Silk” by Annie Sloan Chalk Paints
If you’d rather not paint your entire walls, you can go for painting certain parts of the wall or adding accent colours. This creates an illusion of a colourful space without covering all of the walls. “English Yellow” works so well at complimenting this eclectic hallway which features our Rainbow Runner.
Rainbow Runner with “English Yellow” wall paint by Annie Sloan
Play with Surprise Colours
We are also huge fans of the concept of introducing a surprise colour. For example you can paint the interior of a writing desk and drawers in an opposing colour to the outside. So a blue writing desk could reveal a fuchsia pink interior for example, giving the element of surprise when you open the desk!
If painting furniture isn’t your thing, it would be enough to paint an old picture frame or book shelf to give your interior a colourful link to your modern rug. There are wonderful book cases in different colours which you can buy from Cubit Shop and arrange in the most playful ways, but if you already have the bookcase why not just paint it yourself in a vibrant colour. And guess what? You can always change it to another colour when you get bored.
After Matisse Rug with Cubit Shelves. Image Courtesy of Avocado Sweets.
Using bold vibrant colours on furniture is very fashionable and gives a wonderfully modern feel to an interior. High end High Street shops like Heals and the Conran Shop are packed with vibrant pieces that catch the eye but often its the colour that creates the impact and with the help of Annie Sloan you can achieve that effect in your own totally unique way.
Since lots of our designs have multiple colours in them, one beautiful way of tying together different elements in the room, is to choose one colour within the rug and paint a chair, or cupboard door in the same shade. Our Kaleidoscope Rug consists of 50 different colours, so there is so much choice for you colour wise. You can see some of the Annie Sloan colours that go perfectly with the colours of the Kaleidoscope rug. It’s up to you to choose which colours are your favourite!
Kaleidoscope Rug with a Selection of Annie Sloan Chalk Paints
Annie Sloan also has lots of books and guidance on techniques in up-cycling to help you with the process if its your first time. You will need sanding blocks to start with and wax to finish with and don’t forget to save those old t-shirts for the waxing at the end!
One last very important note. Please safely store away your Sonya Winner modern rug before you do ANY painting!!!
