Buffet Makeover

As I was driving home from dropping K off at school the other day, I noticed that my friend was having a garage sale. I quickly pulled over to see what she had. I immediately spied an antique buffet and saw a $10 sticker on it. I thought it must have been mismarked. But, no, the price was actually only $10. My friend moved some stuff from the top of the buffet to show me why it was only $10 - the top was rotted, moldy, and had a big hole in it. The piece had belonged to her great-aunt whose name began with the letter "V" and the doors with the inlaid "V" were very special to my friend and her great-aunt. I had never tackled such a big makeover, but for $10, I thought it was worth a shot.

Here are some before pictures:

I wasn't quite sure what to do with this beautiful beast. So, I started by trying to scrape off as much of the top as I could. I then went to Home Depot and had the nice guys there cut me a piece of wood to fit to the top and cover the damage on the buffet.

I thought about sanding and re-staining the piece because the wood was so pretty. I especially loved the "V" inlays on the side doors. I started sanding and sanding, but the wood on the drawer-fronts just was not in good enough condition to refinish. So, time to prime and paint. I chose a pale aqua, Martha Stewart's Artesian Well...so pretty! But, I still couldn't get myself to paint over those gorgeous doors. Here's mid-project:

I used wood glue to glue down the new top piece and then I stained it and thought I would leave the top and doors stained and the rest painted. Unfortunately, the top didn't look so good stained, so I painted it:

Those darn doors! So pretty, but not so pretty with the paint. So I grudgingly painted the whole thing. For the final reveal, here she is:

She needed some sparkle, so I added a little gold to the greek-key design on the drawers.

This piece took me a long time. I think it was because I didn't have a clear plan or vision of what I was going to do with her. Through trial and error, this is what I came up with and I'm pretty happy with my $10 experiment!

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