Dining Room Buffet Makeover

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The dining room buffet is probably the most photographed piece of furniture in our house. It is a vintage find from a local flea market/consignment store, purchased not long after we moved in. For years, I debated painting it and a few weeks’ ago, finally went for it. If you can’t handle painted wood, then look away now 😉

Why paint?

You may be saying “why did you paint it? It looked fine!” And, yes, that’s true. But what you don’t see in the photos is the damaged top, normally hidden under a table runner.

You may be saying “but it’s antique! How could you paint an antique?” Well, first, there are a million of these buffets out there. This piece is not one-of-a-kind or hard to find. There are tons of makeovers of very similar pieces. It’s also not really an antique since it’s very much a mass-produced piece. Vintage? Yes. Antique? Not really. I do have a few antique pieces that I do not dream of painting. The desk in the guestroom that was my grandma’s being one of them.

You may be saying “why do people paint wood?” I love wood – I have a ton of wood in our house. I also love contrast and believe in making a piece work for yourself and your house. Sometimes that means painting wood 🙂

Now that you know a little about my philosophy of painting wood, let’s get to the makeover!

Before

As mentioned you see this piece all the time. Fourth of July, Christmas, fall and many many more! I was also very curious to find out if the hardware was brass (spoiler alert: It is!).

I started by clearing and cleaning the piece, giving it a light sanding all over. This guy is super heavy so instead of moving it, I shoved some cardboard under each corner and was very careful when painting.

DecoArt was kind enough to send me some product for this makeover. I used a dark gray with a satin finish. Given that the buffet often serves as our bar for entertaining, I wanted to use something that can be easily wiped down. Rather than paint the full piece gray, I decided to leave the drawer fronts natural wood for a little two-tone action.

After

It took two coats of paint plus some touch paints for the new look. The really fun part was seeing the brass hardware come back to life. After removing the hardware, I soaked them in Barkeeper’s Friend and some warm water. From there, I used a toothbrush to scrub and scrub until they came clean. Warning – if you do this, wear gloves while scrubbing. My hands ended up peeling a few days later …. whoops.