These two pieces of furniture came to me via the online garage sale site and from a sweet friend who needed the two pieces furniture gone. I had offered to the buy the first piece (tall, glass door cabinet) but had no real use for the matching, small buffet. But she made me an offer I could not refuse to take both. Which they did match, and both were in good shape, so why not? I am a sucker for old furniture that I can clean up, work on and paint. I also love finding a purpose for the pieces in the house.
In a prior post, I shared what I look for when purchasing older furniture pieces. Today, I wanted to share the finished pieces, process and purposes. Very pleased with how the furniture turned out and we did find a purpose for the small buffet.
After bringing the pieces home, I will work to repair any parts of the furniture and remove the drawers. Mineral spirts is a good way to clean wood furniture to clean up the wood and better see the quality of the wood as well. I use mineral spirts and let the furniture sit for about 12 hours. I would normally remove the handles but these were where pretty challenging to remove so I choose to paint over them which is good and bad. Paint does not adhere well to the hardware but I also didn’t want the hardware to be gold, but to blend in.
I selected two paint colors; one was a grey/blue, but it is a historical blue for the tall cabinet. I had found a similar cabinet in PA about 4 years ago and it sold fast. Ever since, I had been looking for something similar. This blue is also versatile with our house colors which include white, grey, and navy.
The small buffet was painted a moss green. This added an element of color. I had all intentions of selling this piece to make up for the furniture purchase. However, we have a record player and needed a cabinet to put the player on, this was the perfect size. I have a historical Civil War print that I purchased 10 years ago and had framed that has a lot of shades of green, so this print and the cabinet complement each other.
Here are the finished projects and I love them both. As long as you have vision or can see possibilities, looking at old furniture pieces and visualizing what they can or could look like with some TLC and paint, becomes a rewarding and fun hobby.
Below are some before and after photos.
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