We finally crossed one of those small home projects off our list: painting the bedroom finials so they match our bed, Ed. If you look closely in the photo, the finials were a touch too bright compared with the bed posts, so we set out to match the color as closely as possible. This is an easy, practical technique for matching paint to any existing piece of furniture—useful if you’re planning to add legs to a painted dresser, swap out hardware, or refresh trim to blend with a pre-painted item.
The method is simple and low-cost. Start by collecting a variety of paint swatches in the general color family of the item you want to match. In our case that meant white swatches, including popular whites and variations with different undertones and brightness levels. We weren’t loyal to any single brand—we wanted the widest range of tones so we could find the closest visual match.
Once you have the swatches, take them home and hold each one up to the piece you’re matching. The best match will appear to “disappear” visually, meaning the swatch blends in with the existing finish and you no longer notice a contrast. That’s how we picked Parchment White by Glidden for Ed’s posts—the swatch blended with the bed posts better than the others.
Rather than buying a full can, we bought a small test pot in a satin finish for just a few dollars. For painting the finials efficiently, I reused the large cardboard backing from a mirror we had purchased for the guest bedroom—big cardboard pieces are handy when you’re doing a lot of small paint projects. I pushed each finial through the raised section of the cardboard so they would stand upright; that made it easy to paint every side without having to handle or spin them while the paint was wet.
The painting itself was quick and satisfying. I worked in the evening while watching some TV—the kind of low-effort evening task that feels productive without being time-consuming. The satin test pot provided good coverage and a finish that looks consistent with Ed’s posts.
The final result? The finials now blend in with the bed and are barely distinguishable from the posts. That subtle continuity makes the whole piece feel more intentional and finished. One caveat: items from the same retailer can still vary in shade—some white Ikea pieces, for example, can be brighter or have different undertones—so Parchment White by Glidden may not match every white item you own. That’s why testing swatches and buying a small test pot is a smart, inexpensive approach.
If you’re planning your own color-match project, here are a few quick tips: gather swatches from multiple brands, look at them in the room lighting where the item will live, choose a small test pot before committing to a full can, and use recycled cardboard or a simple stand-up setup to paint small parts without touching wet surfaces. Small projects like this are quick wins and often lead to more ideas for refreshing other pieces—so be warned, it can be contagious. But that’s part of the fun of DIY: one little update can inspire a whole series of small improvements around the house.