From Utility to Creativity

Many of us have similar ideas of what a paint store looks like. A sea of color cards greets you at the door. Gallon cans of paint line utilitarian shelves. Brushes hang from pegs in good/better/best assortments. Whether you’re painting interior walls, changing the color on the shutters or giving an old dresser new life, it’s all about tools to get the job done.

The look of most paint stores screams UTILITY.

At a recent trend-spotting trip to the OC Mix, an upscale shopping destination in Costa Mesa, CA, The Trend Curve team visited Peinture, which showcases Chalk Paint® decorative paint by Annie Sloan.

This tiny shop, which functions as a furniture-painting studio and project workshop, takes a completely different approach. For starters, it eschews color cards in favor of hand-lettered paint boards that are as decorative as they are functional. Each board also provides color letdowns and their formulas. Colors also appear in clever ways, covering a series of different chair frames or coating wooden hands that hold paint brushes.

Books by Annie Sloan about decorative painting are part of the assortment. Tools for reinventing furniture, floors and walls—like stencils, brushes, stamps, vintage-inspired hardware and more—are celebrated in fabulous visual displays.

This unique approach is powerful enough to shift the perception of painting from utility to creativity.