Please Don't Paint Beautiful Natural Woodwork

I was once hired to restore the interior of a historic Tudor-style home in Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood. Previous owners had made some drastic changes that were entirely inappropriate for the architectural style of the house, and my clients wanted to restore as much of the original character as possible.

I was fortunate to find the original architect’s drawings at the Denver Public Library. Using those drawings as a guide, I prepared a complete and highly detailed set of plans for the restoration. Much of my work focused on recreating the beautiful stained-wood paneling, stairs, doors, and decorative moldings that had originally been part of the house.

The workmanship of the contractor and his crew was excellent. I was very pleased with the finished project, and so were my clients.

Imagine my surprise some years later when a photograph of the house appeared on the cover of a prominent design magazine — with my carefully detailed wood paneling painted white!

Apparently, new owners had decided they didn’t appreciate the richness of the stained woodwork and wanted the interior to feel brighter.

You may say, “Well, it was their house. They could do whatever they wanted with it, including painting the woodwork.”

Of course they could.

But when I was young, my father taught me that one should never deliberately destroy something of value, because in some small way doing so also hurts the person who created it. That lesson has stayed with me throughout my career.

You might also argue that the wood wasn’t really destroyed. It is still there beneath the paint, after all. A future homeowner could simply strip off the paint and refinish it.

Unfortunately, it isn’t always that simple.

I have seen how much time and effort can go into removing paint from previously finished woodwork. The more refined and intricate the detailing, the more difficult the task becomes. And with open-grained woods such as oak and ash, paint can penetrate deeply into the pores. Completely removing it may be extremely difficult and sometimes virtually impossible.

In those cases, something really has been lost.

Tudor Staircase & Paneling

Woodwork designed by Denver Architect Robert Larsen to replicate original historic woodwork. Much of this was later painted white by new homeowners.

Why Do We Respond So Strongly to Natural Wood?

In recent years, architects and interior designers have increasingly discussed a concept called biophilia — our innate tendency to respond positively to nature and to materials, forms, and patterns that remind us of the natural world.

Wood is particularly interesting because we recognize it almost instinctively as something that was once alive.

There has been research into people’s physiological and psychological responses to wood interiors. In general, exposure to wood and other natural materials has been associated with favorable emotional responses and, in some studies, with indicators of reduced stress.

That doesn’t mean we can claim that sitting in an oak-paneled room will lower everyone’s blood pressure by a predictable amount. But there is credible evidence supporting the broader idea that natural materials can contribute to the sense of well-being we experience in biophilic environments.

When wood is stained, oiled, clear-finished, or simply left natural, we see the grain, knots, growth patterns, color variations, and irregularities that tell us unmistakably:

This came from a tree.

Natural-finished wood gives us several qualities associated with biophilic design:

Natural material — we can immediately recognize the material’s natural origin.
Natural pattern and complexity — wood grain combines repetition and variation without ever becoming mechanically uniform.
Tactile character — particularly with matte or low-build finishes, we can both see and feel some of the texture of the wood.
Individuality — no two boards are precisely alike.
Evidence of growth and time — grain and growth rings quietly reveal the biological process that created the material.

Paint changes that relationship considerably.

A painted poplar door and a painted MDF door can look nearly identical. Once an opaque coating conceals the grain, our eyes receive very little information telling us that the material underneath was once part of a living tree.

Painted wood can certainly be beautiful. It can still contribute craftsmanship, proportion, texture, shadow lines, and color to an interior. A room can also have many other biophilic qualities through daylight, views, plants, natural stone, and connections to the outdoors.

But the specifically biophilic character of the wood itself has largely been concealed.

I would put the distinction this way:

Natural-finished wood allows the material itself to participate in the experience of a room. Painted wood primarily allows the form of the millwork to participate.

Not All Painted Wood Is Wrong

I should make an important distinction.

Painting ordinary paint-grade poplar isn’t necessarily an offense against either good design or biophilia. It may be exactly what the architecture calls for. Painted millwork can be completely appropriate in modern, traditional, and historic interiors.

But taking oak, walnut, cherry, mahogany, quarter-sawn white oak, or another wood specifically selected for its grain, color, and character and later covering it with opaque paint is something quite different.

A quality that someone deliberately selected — and that nature spent decades creating — has disappeared.

Architectural appropriateness matters as well. An architect or designer should consider the character and history of a building when choosing wood finishes. Painted woodwork may be entirely appropriate in one architectural style while beautifully finished natural wood may be an important part of the identity of another.

And that brings me to another project.

Craftsman Style Staircase and Woodwork

Robert Larsen designed Cherry, Maple and Walnut woodwork was saved from being painted at the last minute.

The Craftsman House That Was Almost Painted White

Later in my career, I was hired to design the interior woodwork for a new Craftsman-style home inspired in part by the work of architects Greene and Greene in the early 20th century.

The woodwork was primarily cherry, accented with light maple detailing and dark walnut square dowels. The edges and corners of the boards were carefully rounded to give the woodwork a handcrafted quality. My clients selected furnishings and wall finishes that beautifully complemented the natural wood.

The finished interior was stunning.

Unfortunately, the husband died suddenly, and the house was eventually put up for sale.

I learned what happened next when I received a call from the new owners. They wanted me to design some additional woodwork to match the original.

During our conversation, they told me something horrifying.

A real-estate agent had advised the widow to paint all of the interior woodwork white, believing the house would sell more quickly that way.

A painter had actually begun the job.

By an extraordinary stroke of luck, the people who eventually bought the house arrived for a showing just as the painting was getting underway. They immediately recognized what was about to be lost and insisted that the painter stop.

The cherry, maple, and walnut woodwork was saved.

A Plea From an Architect

So I will end with a simple plea.

Before painting existing natural-finished woodwork — particularly fine paneling, doors, stairs, moldings, cabinetry, columns, beams, or other architectural features — please stop and think about what is being covered up.

Paint colors can be changed easily. Natural wood that has survived for decades — sometimes for a century or more — is much harder to recover once it has been painted.

The grain of a beautiful piece of wood is not a decorative pattern applied at the factory. It is the visible record of something that grew.

It brings warmth, variation, texture, history, and a small but genuine connection to the natural world into our buildings.

Once we have beautiful natural wood, perhaps the best thing we can do is simply let it be wood.

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