Home Project

A friend and neighbor of mine also happens to be an incredibly talented interior designer - and bargain hunter.  

I have the best friends!  

She has been helping me with our home interiors and recently found this lovely bargain buffet.  It just needed a little love.  

Now, I am not a DIYer but with her support and experience, I decided I was up for the challenge. 

My enthusiasm was pretty strong the first day or two.  I deglossed the whole thing and then using spray paint, primed it white.  I then painted it (with spray paint again) in gray and began sanding it by hand to distress.

So easy!  Right?  That's what I was thinking.

I should have known... it was just a little TOO easy.

See the design on the doors?  For some reason, the one on the right popped through when I began sanding by hand.  Grrr.  And there was a little bit of bubbling under the paint on the left side.

OK - no problem.  I can handle a little extra work.  

I taped around those areas, borrowed a friend's palm sander and sanded down the right door and the left side all the way to the wood.  I then re-primed and re-painted those areas.

The next day, I removed the painters tape.  Now, anyone who has done such a project is gasping.  Yep.  The tape stripped the paint right off too.  If you ever consider doing this type of work and have to tape over newly painted furniture - pull the tape off THE SECOND you finish painting the other areas or you run the same risk.

It was at this point, I almost threw in the towel.  I was so disgusted with my stupid mistake.  Thank goodness I wasn't doing this alone or the buffet would still be sitting in my garage.

But after a little reassurance and coaching from my friend, I went back at it... hand sanding the paint peeled areas to smooth and then doing a little re-touching of paint.  Once I started the distressing and then antiquing process, it actually added more character to the piece.  

Another friend of mine recently refinished some furniture too and used a glazing process which was beautiful.  I used shoe polish for my antiquing look.

Finally done!  

Almost.  When I purchased this piece, it had an unattractive mirror attached to the back.  We removed it and bought a piece of broken granite with plans to have it cut to fit on top of this buffet making it a truly usable piece of furniture.

The guy who was doing the cutting has been near impossible to reach.  I called him almost every day for two weeks straight before Thanksgiving.  Then played a game of tag for one whole day trying to meet him at his business to pick it up.  No luck.

After Thanksgiving, this little game continued.  I had almost given up and pretty much decided it looked fine without a top. 

See, this is why I don't DIY.  It gets to a certain point of complicated or time consuming and I just quit.

Finally today I reached him.  And not only did I get my granite top, he DELIVERED it!  Yahoo!

Before

After

I'm so excited!  Even though I had a few first-timer troubles, the whole thing really didn't take very long and was well worth the trouble for the beautiful outcome!