Tutorial: Repurpose a dining room buffet and hutch into stylish mudroom storage Part One

I never seem to be able to leave well enough alone. And I've done it again. Our architect's design team created lovely plans for our new mudroom. They included custom built cabinets with cubbies for storing shoes and hats and gloves and other what nots, with a built-in bench in between. It was really quite nice, and just like the ones I had tucked into one of my many idea books on Houzz, something like this one by Susan Obercian Design :

Nice, isn't it? but for some reason, the more I thought of it the more I decided that lovely as it is, it doesn't 'fit' my style. My dear husband really had no idea what to make of me when I announced that I had changed my mind about the built-ins. What do I want instead? Glad you asked!!

I want this:

In case you are not sure, the object of my desire is that awesome vintage dining room buffet and hutch at the very back of this consignment shop. Gorgeous, isn't she? Ok she is not gorgeous. She is old and out of style. She was all the rage in the 1960s. (When I was young everyone's dining room had one of these babies!) BUT she has great bones! She is SOLID FRUITWOOD. And she has potential!

When I laid eyes on this ugly duckling she was forlornly sitting at the back of the shop, where items go that no one would buy. Next stop, the dump. I couldn't believe my eyes. Why had no one else seen what I saw? I didn't even bother to phone my husband, which I normally would do, you know, to create the illusion of a discussion when in actuality my mind is totally made up, but this time I didn't even think of talking it over. I knew I wasn't leaving the store without her. I am so very lucky to be married to this guy. He just said "ok if that's what you really want." I guess after 34 years he has realized that there is no point resisting when my mind is made up! So, for just over $250 she was all mine. Now all I had to do was get her home. A quick call to our wonderful son, and presto, he and dear husband had her loaded up in the back of a truck and away we went.

I was so excited I couldn't sleep while I planned with intricate detail how I would accomplish this makeover. My little mind was working over time. I knew she could look fabulous given half a chance, like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, and I even started to refer to her as Audrey.

Finally I decided on a Restoration Hardware type finish. Since Audrey is not overly fancy I thought this might work, give her a whole new modern vibe while still with a nod to her vintage origin. I agonized over paint colours, and especially over how I would execute the look. I think I studied close to a billion Pinterest images before I felt secure about how to make this a reality.

Let me step back a bit and share with you the 'vision' that was guiding me here. Because a picture is worth a thousand blogs, here is my 'inspiration picture', Restoration Hardware potting shelves:

Do you see the resemblance to Audrey? No? Well, keep reading...


Next, off to my local Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Stockist, The Painted Bench in Oakville. The owners, Nicole and Melanie, are so helpful and supportive. I chose Old White (seems I can't get enough of this warm historical white) and Coco. After a brief chat with Nicole in which she gave some wonderful tips about using shellac to seal vintage furniture to avoid bleed through and how to do a wash (I thought I knew how to do that but live and learn!), I flew out ready to start primping Audrey.

 

Here is a close-up of this girl. Now, imagine the molding gone. Poof! Glass doors gone. Poof! (Now you are looking at lovely open shelves, 4.5 feet of them.) Next the bottom doors with those old style panels. Poof! Panels gone, replaced with wire mesh. Oh yeah, you can see it too right?

 

Now, I have vision, I have persistence, I have resourcefulness. What I don't have is power tools and brute strength. So that's where dear husband comes in once more. It was sooo easy to sweet talk him into removing those panels! Here is a photo of him working away at removing them while I took down all the glass doors.

 

 



Let me tell you, this wasn't easy without using a router and jig saw to cut it out, but I wanted to save the panels if possible so that I could use them as practice boards. And I'm glad I did! One of the things I discovered by doing this was that paint is seriously affected by the colour of whatever it is painted onto. Here is what I mean. Below is a sample of Coco painted directly on the fruitwood panel (and some experiments with Old White on top of it). It looks positively olive!



The next photo is Coco applied over a base coat of Old White. Crazy! I liked the warm brown and gold tones that this brought out.

This is a tip that I hope you use yourself since it can be disappointing to have your piece turn out a different colour than you had imagined. Based on this I decided to use a base of Old White and then try my hand at colour washing the Coco over top. More on how that turned out in a future post.

For now, here are some photos of Audrey letting go of her 1960's accessories.

See what I mean? GREAT bones.

The last thing I did before starting to paint was to bring out my instrument of torture...

here's a better look -->

This is a home-made antiquer. A maker of genuine authentic worm holes. A simple paddle made of a board, just the right size for my tiny hand to comfortably hold, with a bunch of very sharp pointy screws on one end. And, my oh my, poor Audrey got the daylights whacked out of her with that thing! Instant worm holes!

I thought the worm holes would add a little character, and they would really show up nicely with the help of a liberal application of dark wax.

With all these steps done, I called it a day and dreamed all night of Part Two of Audrey's makeover. I'll write about that and show more pictures in a future post. For now, I hope I've inspired you to think of new ways to give new life to old and worn items, like dear Audrey!

Blessings,
The Duchess of New Life