Our Small Spaces: Big Ideas issue comes with a fab 48 page supplement called The Room, brought to our readers by Freeworld Coatings.  

The Room is absolutely saturated with colour ideas, DIY projects, helpful painting tips  and sheer colour inspiration for every single room in your house, using Freeworld products like Earthcote, Plascon, Midas and Hamiltons. There are ideas for kids’ rooms, a home office, a loft, your front door, and more…  I particularly fancied this dresser and fireplace makeover, myself.

While helping prepare the supplement, DECO’s intern Maryke Olivier went the extra mile and took some behind-the-scenes pics of just how our brilliant stylists managed to give a dreary old dresser a new lease on life, with the help of a couple of pots of paint from Freeworld Coatings:

Step 1: Sand the wood before applying a coat of Midas Universal Undercoat.

Step 2: Use a pencil and ruler to draw equal-sized squares along the front surface, leaving a border around the edges.

Step 3: Connect the squares’ opposing corners with lines to form triangles, then carefully mask the spaces you want to paint. Remember to mask one triangle completely, if you would like the bare wood to show.

Step 4: Choose your colours. Our stylist, Misi Overturf chose Plascon Cashmere ‘White Canvas’ (D13-1) and ‘Lapis Blue’ (B6-B1-1), and Midas Midacoat Satin ‘Black’.

Step 5: Use a small, flat brush to paint the triangles very carefully. Here are all the DECO interns and production assistants in full concentration.

Step 6: Paint the border and remaining sides black, then step back to admire your handiwork.

Production: Misi Overturf

Assistants: Elsa Gouws, Nina du Plessis, Maryke Olivier

Photographs: Justin Patrick