I am an absolute sucker for clever home decor ideas using paint. Paint is an affordable way to totally transform your home, so I’m always on the lookout for interesting ways that people use it. Recently, I’ve seen some genius paint tricks used residentially, so I wanted to share them today on the blog. Most of these are really easy to do and can be fun, small home projects with effective results. All of them look modern and contemporary and are a little different to what has been seen before.

3D Purple Staircase

While we’ve seen rainbow staircases (each step painted a varying colour) and the painted stair runner, I was really drawn to this stunning purple staircase in the Streatham-based location house Tierney Terrace due to its 3D cube effect. If you look closely, the actual step is a glossy white, underneath is painted purple (Dulux: 82BB38/251 if you’d like to know!) with the inside of each spindle purple to match. It is a really striking and really clever way to transform an otherwise standard staircase and provides a high level of visual interest.

If you want to paint a staircase like this yourself, it is essential to put time into the prep work to avoid paint chipping. You’ll need to sand back well, prime, paint and then varnish. Yet, as the images above show, it will be well worth the effort.

Painted Scallop Stripes by Emma Jane Palin

This detailed painted scallop design by renter Emma Jane Palin is incredibly clever and a great way to add interest and colour to your walls if you don’t actually want to paint out the whole room. It is also very budget-friendly as it can be created with leftover paint or a couple of small tester pots. Emma constructed this design by drawing around a protractor and then painting inside the pencil line. While I wouldn’t say it was easy to do (especially if you do not have a steady hand), Emma has written up a brilliantly comprehensive blog on how to re-create this look so you really cannot go wrong.

Follow Emma’s award-winning blog here, or her modern and colourful Instagram page here (but why not do both!)

Paint Up On To The Coving

This is a painting idea that I’ve personally had experience with in my own home. I am currently redecorating my bedroom which has thick, dramatic coving. Initially, I painted the walls up to the coving - as per the traditional method - but it didn’t feel right. I felt I needed to take the wall colour up and over onto the coving and after a conversation with ‘Man With A Hammer’ (aka Instagram DIY sensation Greg, who is currently renovating his new home in Devon), he informed me that he had recently done this in his house and the end result was a grandeur finish with the walls feeling taller and more dramatic. I decided to follow his lead and take the paint up onto the coving and I am so glad I did! While my bedroom is not ready for a full reveal yet, you can see the progress of this below:

Another very clever coving paint idea can be seen below in a room designed by Emilie Fournet Interiors. She has used two shades of the same colour (Salt I and Salt II by Paint & Paper Library) on both the ceiling and the coving. The lighter shade is on the ceiling and the darker tone is on the coving, leaving the coving feeling more dramatic and highlighted without being completely disconnected from the ceiling.

The Ceiling Stripe

While I’ve used loads of painter’s tape to create a sharp line or block off one colour from the next, I’ve never used it as a tool to paint over and then peel back to reveal a perfect stripe! Two incredibly talented designers who have done this are Andrew Jonathan and Sarah Sherman Samuel. Each designer has taken a traditional plain white ceiling and applied a painter’s tape where they want their stripe(s) to be then covered the ceiling and the tape with green paint. When the tape is removed you get the stripe effect.

Use a spirit level and a pencil to mark where your tape should go before you apply it to ensure your stripe comes out straight. Use a low-tack tape if you’ve only recently painted a fresh coat of white onto the ceiling. For my top tips on applying painter’s tape, see this older blog post here.

The Steel Window Paint Trick

I’ve been a long admirer of the home of Leoma Harper, who writes the blog Style The Clutter. I’d often lusted over her stunning conservatory on Instagram where a large branch protrudes over the dining table, to which Leoma hangs charming seasonal decor. I always thought the black glass doors in her conservatory were made from steel, but after perusing her blog recently I found a post which talks about how she painted them from white to black! It gives the space a much more modern look and even though it was a brave plunge, it totally paid off. What I really like about it is that she didn’t paint the whole thing black, risking it feeling overbearing. Instead, she left the columns between the panes white, breaking it all up nicely and keeping it cohesive with the conservatory roof.