Painted Coat Peg Racks in Stiffkey Blue: Storage Worth Painting in Every Room

Most hallways have the same problem. Four people, one row of hooks, and a growing pile of coats on the end of the banister. A peg rack fixes that. Painted in a colour with some backbone, it also becomes the first thing anyone sees when the front door opens. That's an immediate and obvious advantage of a painted furniture storage solution.

In the Hallway: a Stiffkey Blue Coat Peg Rack

Our current favourite is Stiffkey Blue. It’s a deep blue that makes a pale hallway wall look warmer, and it gives hats and scarves something to stand out against. We mix it into Dulux Heritage paint in an eggshell finish. Because a hallway takes more punishment than any other room, eggshell is the sensible choice. It has a soft sheen and wipes clean when the school bags have been at it.

The process is the same careful one we use on any piece: sanding, masking the pegs, water-based  primer, an undercoat, two coats of top coat, and several hours to dry fully. The rack in the photo has its wooden pegs left bare, which is one of the elements made in the brief by our customer. Drawer knobs, like these pegs, can be painted to match, painted in a contrasting colour, sanded and varnished, or left as they are. Our seven decisions checklist covers all of that, handles included.

Hallways also suit seating with storage. This pine monks bench in Camberley started out as solid white pine with heavy brown knotting and visible nail putty marks. After painting it’s a crisp Timeless white, a Dulux paint, which sits comfortably with the modern look of the hallway it now lives in.

In the Sitting Room

Sideboards, TV units, bookcases, consoles and blanket chests all take paint well, and this is where the “shabby or not” decision matters most. A crisp modern finish and a softly distressed one suit very different rooms.

Paint isn’t the only route. The limed look is different from a painted finish. There’s no primer, no undercoat and no topcoat. The grain does the work, and everything we do is in service of letting the wood show through. Our limed pine chest shows what that looks like.

In the Bedroom

Chests of drawers, wardrobes, bedside tables and dressing tables are where handles earn their keep. The white painted tallboy in Leatherhead had eight generous drawers, all still running smoothly after half a century, and a set of oval drawer pulls that were far too good to lose. The brief was simple. Keep every bit of that character, lose the dark wood, and give the customer a piece that would sit happily in a modern bedroom rather than looking like a hand-me-down from a different era.

So the handles stayed, and that is one of the checklist decisions. Keeping them is often the right call when they’re as good as these.

In the Kitchen

The kitchen is where finish matters most, because cooking steam is harder on paint than anything in the rest of the home. It’s also where a colour can stop working. We were asked to look at a butcher’s block that was originally a shade of grey, which didn’t suit a relatively new kitchen build. We prepared it for paint and finished it in Dulux Brilliant White eggshell.

The bare wooden top was a chance to do something different. We sanded it down and varnished it with Rocktop from Smith and Rodger. That gave the block a hard-wearing top for food preparation and a painted base to match the kitchen. That’s the two-tone option: one piece, two finishes, each suited to what it has to do.

Larders, dressers, glazed cabinets and plate racks work in the same way, with the paint chosen for the wear it will get.

What Happens when it Comes Home?

When a piece is unwrapped, customers almost always run a hand along the top before they say anything. It’s a small moment, and it’s the reason we take the preparation as seriously as we do.

If you’ve got a piece in mind, send us a photo and your answers to the seven decisions, by reply to our email or on WhatsApp (07351 101851), and we’ll quote. Sign up to the newsletter and you’ll also get the free collection voucher for Surrey.

Somewhere in your hallway, there’s a row of coats that would be happier on pegs.