Buffet to Bookcase

This is a very proud mummy moment. My eldest daughter (9) has just finished her first upcycled piece 🎉🎈🧁🍰🥤🥂🍾 (the champagne is for me, obviously).

During this last week we’ve been preparing for la rentrée and I’ve also been spending some time focusing on the living room. My second Covid jab wiped me out, and I I just couldn’t face cementing the second half of the kitchen prior to laying it. As we have people coming over I decided to do a little more work in the sitting room; it wasn’t quite so taxing.

My daughter is always curious about my DIY and I’d said to her that, if she cleaned her room really well to prepare for going back to school, she could paint a buffet top I’ve been meaning to do. I had it because of the beautifully panelled doors which I want for another project, and I thought that as we need some bookcases I’d use it for this purpose.

Then in the afternoon I set her up for the buffet. It’s not a very solid piece, but does have some nice details. My thinking was even if it’s not eventually sturdy enough it will be a good for a first project for her and will make do for minimal money in the meantime.

She was so excited about it and got straight on with doing her room.

Her first task, if course, was to clean it all down. As it’s not the most refined piece of furniture I wasn’t going to go to town on it; it wouldn’t have been worth my while sanding all the wood back, for example. So I got her to just clean it thoroughly and talked to her about the stain marks to look out for when doing this on a piece of old furniture. It’s always good to be aware that we might be facing trouble ahead.

There seemed to be no stain transfer on to the kitchen towel during wiping down, so I got her to start straight away with a primer. Even though I use chalk paint most of the time I always use primer if I haven’t stripped the wood. I use one specifically for covering stained wood, as I’ve been caught out before.

You’ll notice on the finished piece that the interior is a darker grey; I bought Royal Grey from Action and used that on the interior with a coat of transparent, water based varnish. Then I mixed a small amount with Old White. It’s about a 2:1 ratio.

She painted it with just 1 coat of primer. Half way through she complained she was tired. I encouraged her to continue, saying she wouldn’t have the satisfaction of being able to say she did it by herself.

After some wailing and gnashing of teeth she finished and was happy with her efforts.

She finished her second coat in the chalk paint and I did the third for her whilst she was in school.

You’ll notice the top is new wood. As it was the top half of a buffet the top wasn’t made for putting anything heavy on, so I bought a new wood worktop and cut it to size. The stain is a bit orangey, I’m disappointed with that. I may apply another coat of stain on top.

I helped her sand it all back, then we added a coat of clear wax and copper to highlight the details before buffing them all. Both of these wax’s were by Libéron.

The buffet hasn’t been artfully arranged underneath – it’s definitely not Pinterest ready. It’s purpose is for after school each day. We don’t allow the kids to watch tv during the week and encourage them to read. I believe that if there are always books nearby they become a part of our lives. Some of my happiest moments when I was young was curling up and getting lost in a book!