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Well, I painted my breakfast room buffet again. This is the fourth time I’ve painted this buffet since I got it in 2015. 😀 So far, this buffet has been coral, black, dark purple, and now it’s an even darker and deeper purple. And I’ll paint it again in the future if I think it needs to be a different color. But for now, in its current position in this room with its current decor, I think its new color is perfect.
I wanted to keep it purple because it works great with the purple benches in the room, and it ties in well with the living room. And both rooms can be seen from the kitchen. But the problem is that the purple that was on the buffet, which I thought was such a deep and dark purple, actually looked pale and washed out next to the new curtains in the room.
I originally painted it purple for the original breakfast room remodel that I finished in 2017. It looked like such a deep and dark eggplant in that room. This color is Behr Voodoo.
But when I started making changes to the room, and especially when I added the new curtains right by the buffet, that purple that I thought was so deep and dark seemed to turn into a washed out, faded purple.
And on really sunny days when the room is being filled with natural light, the buffet would look so washed out that it looked like I had actually repainted it a light purple color. And it just didn’t work with the strong, saturated color on the curtains.
So I went in search of a true, deep, dark eggplant color. My initial thought was to try Benjamin Moore Shadow. Do you remember that color? I think it was Benjamin Moore’s color of the year for 2017, and I remembered the pictures of it looking so dark and moody, and I was sure that it could hold its own against those curtains.
Well, I got a sample, and it was almost identical to the Behr Voodoo that was already on the buffet. That was shocking to me based on the marketing images I remember seeing of that color back in 2017.
So I went back to Home Depot and looked at the Behr colors, and selected the deepest, darkest purple/eggplant that still looked purple (I didn’t want one that looked like black with purple undertones), and I ended up with a color called Black Sapphire. Aren’t sapphires blue? But this was located in the purple section, and it’s very obviously a deep purple.
And the best thing about this color is that it stays a deep dark purple even during the brightest part of the day.
This was not a big, drawn out project. I didn’t even move it out of the room. I simply put some thick paper under the buffet, did the fastest sanding you’ve ever seen (I took about five minutes to sand the whole thing with 220-grit sandpaper), added a bit of Floetrol to a new quart of paint, and brushed it on. Two coats later, I was done. The whole thing took about an hour-and-a-half.
I’m so glad I took the time to do it, because this new color is so dark and rich, and it can definitely hold its own against the bold, saturated color on the curtains.
If you want more details on how to paint furniture, I wrote a post way back in 2013 on how to get a near-perfect paint finish with a paint brush. I haven’t changed my process in all these years. And once you get the foundational steps done (sanding, repair, priming, etc.), then changing colors like I did on this buffet is very quick and easy. All it takes is just a tiny bit of sanding, and a new color on top. That’s why I always stress getting those foundational steps right and not trying to find a way to skip over them for the sake of convenience.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
I hope you’ll join me on my DIY and decorating journey! If you want to follow my projects and progress, you can subscribe below and have each new post delivered to your email inbox. That way you’ll never miss a thing!