Are you looking to create a personalised piece of furniture for your home with Farrow & Ball paint?  Then look no further, here you’ll find tips on just how to get a great look, painting furniture with Farrow & Ball Estate Eggshell.

The photos above were taken by me, and the whole look took just two days to complete, including sanding and cleaning the chest of drawers.  Turning an old piece of battered furniture into a zingy, fun and function chest of drawers.

To get the look, you will need:

• Electric sander or sand paper
• Cloth
• Plyers
• Hammer
• Primer (I used cheap white emulsion)
• Paint
• Paintbrush(s)
• New door knobs (optional)

What paint do you need?
First decide what you want to paint, then you can work out which paint would be best and how much you’ll need.  For this project, I selected the Estate Eggshell in Yellowcake No.279 which has a lightly glossed finish.  I used a 2.5litre tin and once I had finished my two coats I still had over half a tin left.  I lam so in love with this wonderfully retro colour and already have some plans to upcycle a play table for Nye’s beach hut playhouse too.

How to prepare your furniture?
Next look at your piece of furniture and assess what finish it currently has. Has it been varnished, waxed, painted or do you have a plain pre sanded piece that is ready to go?  Most older furniture tends to be varnished (as mine was) and the easiest way to get rid of this is by using a good sander.  For this reason flakey pieces of furniture are the easiest to sand as you’ve already had a helping hand! Before sanding I removed all the handles, taking the bolt off the back with a pair of plyers then using a hammer to loosen the handle from its hole.  Next, is the sanding and you can either sand by hand (time consuming), or use an electric sander.  We have the  which is far superior to anything else I’ve used, to do the entire unit I think it took me about an hour and wasn’t as much hard work as you’d imagine.

How to paint?
I started the process by using a white undercoat, painting the drawers and overall unit with two thin coats, then left it to dry overnight. I painted any bits of the drawers you would see day to day, so the draw fronts and edges but left the internal drawers  Most paint companies seem to suggest that you leave 4 hours between coats, I admit I did cheat a bit on the undercoat as the wood just sucked it all up.  I used a bog standard brush for both the undercoat and the top coat and for .  If you wanted a brush stroke free look you can use a small roller to great effect but you may need to do more coats.

Finishing Touches
Adding or repainting handles is a great way to modernise a piece.  (I find Ebay and Anthropologie a great place to find unique and unusual ones.)  To finish off my chest of drawers, I managed to pick up some cute handles, in what happened to be the exact shade from TK Maxx which were £4 for 4. I mixed these in with a set of original handles and I really like the two tone look it gives.

So, dare I ask, what do you think? Do you have any furniture knocking around that you’re dying to update? What colour paint would you choose for your house?

Disclosure: This feature is in collaboration with Farrow & Ball, all thoughts words and opinions my own.