Mid-Century Modern Buffet Sideboard

Welcome to my six month blog post.

 I certainly could not blog or refinish furniture fast enough to make a living at either. However, I do enjoy both. So today I am sharing my favorite piece to date.

This is my second mid-century piece to refinish.

 I have to admit, I am falling for the clean lines and smaller dimensions. 

We met at my favorite thrift store.

When you find the one, you KNOW you have to have him.

He had seen better days. The color is just awful! 

The drawers were in pretty good shape, but the top had some pretty deep scratches. 

And the sides!  The sides were in really rough shape - scratches, gouges, chunks missing.

I knew from the beginning that the outer casing, although wood, 

could not be sanded and re-stained. 

The wounds would be mended, then painted and sealed.

To start, the outer casing was repaired. Then, the whole piece was sanded. 

In the photo below, I had already painted the legs in Annie Sloan Graphite

 and finished with Dark Wax.

After the first sanding, I applied two coats of paint to the outer casing sanding in between each coat. I sanded again after the final coat. Learning from past projects, I like a smoother paint finish. I wanted to minimize brush strokes on this one.

 I took a chance on the drawers. 

I CAREFULLY sanded them making sure not to go too deep into the wood laminate. Otherwise, they may not accept stain and the whole thing would end up with paint.

I was beyond thrilled with how the first drawer took stain. The drawers, door (which needed a minor repair that did not show when stained - phew!), 

and drawer pulls all took stain beautifully.

I used products already in my workroom:

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint - Graphite

Annie Sloan Dark Wax

Sherwin Williams Wood Classics Stain - Autumn Maple

MinWax Polycrylic (waterbased) Semi-Gloss

This was my Pinterest Inspiration piece.

This was definitely a successful makeover, and I am thrilled I get to keep this one.

Now here is my dilemma and where the project is on hold.

 This beauty is in my dining room, BUT I believe that this piece will hold up better over time if I use a polycrylic to seal over the chalk paint. The light coat of dark wax is holding up fine for now, but I want years of use.  That's right. I want to use it!

I will have another post soon using a polycrylic over chalk paint instead of the wax.

 I do love this new (to me) process and definitely recommend that you try it out

especially for pieces that will get wear and tear. 

Until next time...

Lisa