When to Paint Over Your Home’s Woodwork—and When to Leave It Alone

TWO YEARS AGO when Kate Arends and her family moved into their 1956 rambler-style house in St. Paul, Minn., they encountered a thoroughly outdated kitchen that included uninterrupted oak paneling on the ceilings and walls. Not loving the wood’s golden hue, Ms. Arends, founder of lifestyle brand Wit & Delight, considered painting over it or sanding it down to a more neutral complexion, but the costs seemed prohibitive and the payoff uncertain.After the family had lived with the wood for a year, they decided to honour its hue but surround it with more modern décor. They painted Shaker-style cabinets a daring, un-woodsy powdery rose tone—Sulking Room Pink by Farrow & Ball—and further punched them up by installing slabs of Calacatta Viola marble with its trademark whorls of black and deep purple. An ink-blue gas range adds another shot of the unexpected.

“If the wood is in great shape, the constraints of working within the shade or hue of the stain might seem limiting, but some really interesting solutions can come from those constraints,” said Ms. Arends.

Given the expense and difficulty in removing paint from architectural woodwork, the consensus among interior designers and even real-estate agents is that, if it is historically accurate and in good shape, put down the paint brush and leave it be. Said Jeff Walker, a broker and founder at Agents of Architecture in San Diego, a firm specialising in unique and historic properties, “Our buyers seek untouched homes or homes that have been tastefully restored.”

Lauren Caron, of Seattle’s Studio Laloc, bucked a local trend for drenching wood-filled, early 20th-century Craftsman bungalows in alabaster paint. The interior designer disliked how that approach thoroughly squelched the spirit of the rooms. “It felt like the walls became vacant or less lively,” she said. In the dining space of her own 1916 Craftsman, she decorated to complement the espresso-hued old-growth fir that had been used to construct a built-in breakfront cabinet and frame the doorways. She introduced an onyx and gold modern chandelier to offset the vintage millwork, added Gucci’s Herbarium wallpaper and completely upholstered a posse of Parsons-style chairs, to avoid adding any more wood.

Some instances, however, call for the can and brush. In a bedroom of her 19th-century Greek Revival home, Susan Brinson, a design consultant in Orange County, N.Y., was stuck with a mishmash of wood species and odd door placements. She and her husband painted the walls, doors, window frames and picture-frame moulding a deep teal, then cloaked the ceiling in a lighter teal. This move turned chaos into coherence and delivered a bonus benefit: Some of the couple’s favourite wood furniture, including a Bunny Williams Bamboo bed and antique Italian burled-wood side tables, pop against the rich colour.

Painted wood has other advantages. In the entry of a London townhouse, shown above, local studio Retrouvius Reclamation and Design repainted the joinery a fern green. “Scratches and scuffs from bicycles are more easily repaired in the eggshell-finish paint than they would be in bare wood,” noted a studio spokesman. One of the homeowners co-founded Dashing Tweeds, a designer and purveyor of bright, modern textiles. “Painting is perfect for him because it brings colour and character and is changeable,” said the spokesman. “Paint lets homeowners express themselves.”

Laura Castergine of Melrose, Mass., an amateur decorator, posts photos of her family’s 1904 New England Colonial on social media. Four rooms in the home feature fireplaces with surrounding millwork, three of which were painted before she bought the home. She recast one of those rooms last fall in a subdued sapphire, Wild Blue Yonder from Benjamin Moore, a heritage hue that suits the old house’s personality. “Enveloping a room in a single color achieves a dramatic effect,” said Ms. Castergine. “It’s similar to a wood-panelled wall in that they both bring a cozy feel to a room.”

For her quaint A-frame cabin tucked in the woods of Spooner, Wisc., Ashley Mary of Minneapolis polled Instagram followers about painting the pine-planked triangular back wall to match the room’s other, white walls. As a multi-disciplinary artist, Ms. Mary typically likes walls to function as a blank canvas against which she can arrange funky furniture and mobiles. But because the cabin doubles as an Airbnb rental, she wanted the public’s input. The majority of respondents voted to keep the wall natural (with copious exclamation marks) with many pointing to the house’s forest location and cabin aesthetic as rationales. Ms. Mary complied. “With any coat of paint,” she said, “you’re going to lose that texture and natural warmth that no colour will ever recreate.”

For Jack Freeman, a compelling interior should not look as though it was completed in a single shopping trip.

The founder and designer behind FREEMAN & CO prefers rooms that develop through art, travel, commissioned furniture and objects collected over time. It is an approach that treats the home less as a decorative project and more as an evolving portrait of its owner.

“I am a true believer in collecting versus decorating,” Freeman says.

That distinction underpins the international practice he has built across private residences, hotels, property developments, yachts and private aviation. Its projects stretch from Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay and Toorak to Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean.

Although the locations and architecture vary considerably, the work is connected by a restrained design language. Natural stone, warm timbers and sculptural furniture establish the foundation, while art, bespoke lighting and individual objects give each interior its identity.

The objective is not to overwhelm a room with obvious symbols of expense. It is to create an environment that feels calm, layered and particular to the people living within it.

“The greatest luxury isn’t about excess,” Freeman says. “It’s about creating an oasis where you come home and feel immediately grounded — effortlessly chic and deeply personal.”

Collecting instead of decorating

Decorating can imply the completion of a room: selecting the required furniture, filling the available walls and producing a coherent finished image.

Collecting is less conclusive.

A collected interior has room to change as its owners travel, discover artists, inherit pieces or reassess how they use their home. Its character comes from the relationship between objects rather than adherence to a single brand or season.

That does not mean placing unrelated pieces together without discipline. The designer must understand scale, proportion, material and provenance well enough to create a dialogue between them.

A contemporary artwork might sit beside a historic piece of furniture. A precisely detailed new interior may be interrupted by an irregular object made by hand. Smooth stone can be balanced by timber, textiles or a patinated metal surface that becomes richer with age.

The tension between those elements is part of the appeal.

For Freeman, art is not an accessory to be added once the furniture plan is complete. It forms part of the architecture and atmosphere of the room from the beginning.

Lighting is considered in the same way. Beyond its practical purpose, a bespoke fitting can operate as a suspended sculpture, changing both the room’s composition and the way its materials are experienced after dark.

A design perspective shaped by travel

International travel plays a significant role in Freeman’s creative process.

Design fairs such as PAD Paris and Salone del Mobile in Milan provide opportunities to encounter emerging designers, established galleries, new materials and collectible furniture away from the filter of social media.

More spontaneous discoveries can prove equally important.

“Sometimes it’s the simple things,” Freeman says. “That piece found on a shopping trip with a client in Paris, stumbling across an artisan’s workshop, or a special memory that forms the narrative of the story.”

Objects selected during travel bring more than visual interest into a home. They carry an association with a place, maker or experience, giving the client a connection that cannot be reproduced by ordering an entire interior from a catalogue.

Freeman’s influences are international, but his projects are not conceived as replicas of Parisian, Milanese or Californian style. Each commission responds to its architecture, setting, natural light and the daily lives of its occupants.

A waterfront Sydney residence demands a different treatment from a Mayfair townhouse. A Caribbean estate shaped by brutalist architecture and reflecting pools calls for another response again.

The designer’s role is to absorb those references without allowing them to overwhelm the individual qualities of the property.

Designing the complete experience

FREEMAN & CO extends beyond conventional interior decoration.

The practice’s stated services include interior design and architecture, project management, property acquisition, development advice, concept design, documentation, furniture and lighting design, procurement and art curation.

That breadth allows the team to become involved before a room’s dimensions and finishes are fixed.

Early participation can be important at the top end of the residential market, where architecture, landscape, interiors, technology and art must operate as one environment. Decisions about ceiling heights, wall dimensions, sightlines and lighting can directly affect where art is installed or how custom furniture is proportioned.

The practice can then carry those decisions through to procurement and final installation, maintaining the design narrative as a project moves between architects, builders, specialist craftspeople, dealers and suppliers.

Its residential portfolio includes a South Coast retreat conceived as an escape from urban life, a Caribbean estate with reflecting pools, an East Coast-inspired Palm Beach residence and a Mayfair townhouse organised around an expressive drawing room.

The studio also says it has worked on highly tailored Sydney residences with values exceeding $100 million, although the private nature of such commissions means individual addresses and clients are not always disclosed.

A home that can keep changing

The risk in creating a perfectly resolved interior is that it can become too static — a composition that looks exceptional in photographs but leaves little room for life.

Freeman sees the home as something that should evolve with its owners.

“I love the evolution of design,” he says. “We are talking about people’s lives, and as they evolve, so too should their private sanctuaries.”

That evolution might involve adding art, reupholstering a significant piece, adapting rooms as a family changes or making space for objects gathered through future travels.

The original design needs to be strong enough to accommodate those layers.

This may be the clearest expression of Freeman’s approach to luxury. It is not simply access to rare stone, collectible furniture or commissioned craftsmanship. It is the creation of a personal environment whose meaning deepens rather than diminishes with time.

Fact box

Designer: Jack Freeman

Role: Founder and managing director

Practice: FREEMAN & CO

Base: Australia, with international projects

Project locations named by the practice: Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay, Toorak, Palm Beach, the NSW South Coast, Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean

Sectors: Private residences, hotels, residential developments, private aviation and superyachts

Services: Interior design and architecture, property development, project management, property acquisition, documentation, furniture and lighting design, FF&E procurement, interior dressing and art curation

Design philosophy: Collected, personal interiors shaped by art, craftsmanship, travel and enduring materials

Website: free-man.co

When to Paint Over Your Home’s Woodwork—and When to Leave It Alone

Go ahead, take a can and brush to wood paneling and trim. Design pros say it’s (sometimes) OK.

Jack Freeman believes the most compelling interiors are not decorated, but collected. The FREEMAN & CO founder creates layered, personal spaces shaped by art, travel and craftsmanship.