Painting radiators/doors black

[Gymsharkmum]

hi all

our home is mostly a blank canvas at the moment. Our kitchen and living room is open plan. Our island/kitchen is black cupboards either a brown wood effect worktop and I want a monochrome theme in the living room area.
We have a lot of natural light. If I keep the walls white and paint our radiator black will i regret it? (Our sofa is against the radiator and is a kind of darker shade of royal blue). Don’t have anything else furniture wise in the living room yet, just toys and a wall mounted tv. I have attached an image of home inspo so you can see my ideas.

I also want to paint our ugly doors black in the hallway and keep the walls white. Do I do the skirting black and door frames too?

Will this paint work for doors and radiators?

anything else I need to consider?

So what is your AIBU?

I love mine and my black bannister..not sure if this is reasonable or not, also don't care 😂

Would I do this - no.
Should you do it - yes, if you like the way it looks.
Does it matter what other people think - no, only the homeowners.

I wouldn't paint a radiator black if it's behind a blue sofa. I have black window frames but the doors have been left in natural wood because they are seriously good quality and were here when we bought the house! If you paint the doors black leave the frames white so that it's not too oppressive. But it's your house so do what you like - you can always paint over it if you don't like it!

I would probably replace radiator than paint it.
But I do like black tbf!

I would look into Frenchic paint

Rule of thumb
if you want to emphasise you paint a contrast colour; if you want to make it disappear / blend you paint the same colour as the walls.

in your case
yes to doors + skirting + door frames in black it is stunning or in any other dark colour.

painted rad always look ugly. You would be better of having it dismounted and spray painted or better still buy a black one.

but if it hidden by the sofa why paint it?

also if hidden by the sofa, how much heat do you get? Maybe move to another location to maximise the heat.

navy blue and black was first put together by Yves St Laurent, so IMO it is stunning.

no to brown worktop to many colours contrasting with the black: brown and navy blue. Pick one and stick to it or bring a lighter tone.

choose your black carefully. There are loads of different shades of black like there are for white.

post a picture of the finished room.

Apologies for the typos

paint a rad will lower the output

Not sure about the colour scheme, but for painting rads I’d use Zinnser Allcoat. Have used it on so many things and it’s never given anything but excellent results. Also has the advantage of being usable on practically any surface. Those guys really know how to make paint.

I’m sure you have been here long enough to know that people post in AIBU for traffic

Thanks for this!

we have the floor to ceiling vertical radiators rather then horizontal if that makes sense so is only partially hidden. Just worried about a colour class with the sofa.

we also have never had the heating on since living here (not once!) as our building is really hot. We just have the aircon on in the summer.

I didn’t know about the navy blue and black being a YSL thing. This has got my interest. Maybe I’m on to something 😆

I also didn’t know there was multiple shades of black. I’m going to get some samples I think. I find it hard to picture things I can’t see hence the help needed here.

thank you for taking the time to reply! :)

We don’t actually use the heating so not worried about this but thank you for the heads up! :)

Thank you for this! Will have a look into the brand

Buy more paint than you need as we have black doors that constantly need retouched, it's not as forgiving as white.

Therefore it is very visible as vertical. Then absolutely need to get it sprayed or buy a new one as thats the only way yoy can guarantee a beautiful seamless result.

but in your case, i would keep rhe radiator the same colour as the walls. You dont want it to stand out in this situation. The rest (furnitures, frames, etc) should do the talking.

but if yoy have never turned it on, why not getting a smaller or one or getting rid of it all together?

I’m just about to get my skirting , doorframes and bannister painted back to white from black. Booked in this week.
It was a fad in Covid and it’s quickly become a dying trend. It took over from the Mrs Hinch grey trend.

looks amazing, BUT black shows the dust more. Black streaks a lot when cleaned. Black chips and shows more than white.

So if you have 3 kids and a dog, and aren't on top of cleaning (like me) don't do it.
If you have a beautiful home, cleaned by someone else regularly, then it looks great

In those photos you posted the skirting and architraves are white. I think pinting them black will cheapen the look