Buffet to Kitchen Island

In an effort to fulfill my dream of having a kitchen island with seating, Andrew and I are making one from a thrifted buffet table, plywood and elbow grease. This project is going to be posted in parts because I can't stand to not share it as I go along! This whole project is part of a Pinterest Challenge I've joined, which you can read all about right here.

The overall vision we have for the island is to have this piece as the base and create an extended fake butcher block top (thank you Pinterest) and use salvaged table legs, with stools for seating. We have a Habitat for Humanity ReStore shop in our neighborhood, and it has all sorts of amazing finds from furniture, household trinkets, and even building supplies. I've never ventured in there until I started looking for a piece of furniture to make the island with. We were looking for a piece of furniture to repurpose, rather than a pair of kitchen cabinets with a counter top... we need some personality!

What I found was this:

Hideous color and gingerbread all over the place. Ugly. Andrew got it home and started tearing right into it, so I didn't get a full picture of the piece in all it's 1960 glory. We saw this piece a month before we purchased it, and I decided to go back and check on it. I kept thinking about it and figured if it was still there, it was meant to be ours. And it was still there. MINE! The size was perfect, the storage space was awesome, it's solid wood, and most of that gingerbread was half falling off as it was. Let me just tell you the amazing cost of this little piece of amazing:

Originally: $40
Blue Tags: 40% off
Total: $24.

No brainer... we snapped that right up.

Andrew started popping off all the funky bits and the top, and filling holes in preparation to start sanding the whole thing down.

We sanded it down with a palm sander, and to my surprise, the sander took off every bit of laquer and stain, leaving the piece totally clean and unfinished wood. I was sure we'd have to spend days stripping it and sanding.

I am a failure and didn't get a picture of the entire piece sanded clean because it started to rain and we had to close up shop and lug the whole thing into the house. Oh, and my husband started to paint it before I had a chance to get more pictures. He will be banned from all future posts.

The paint we used is called "Ice Cream Sundae" by Clark + Kensington, which we actually got 2 quarts of flat paint for free with a coupon from Ace Hardware a few months ago. Win. We did 2 coats of the paint and a clear varnish over that to seal it, since it'll be used in a kitchen (and I'm a sloppy cook).

So this is where we are before the clear coat! The doors were drying, so just pretend they're there. As far as knobs go, I ordered a set of antique brass bird knobs from World Market:

(World Market)

These are for the 2 doors, and I'm looking for plain knobs for the drawers. I'll probably go with wooden knobs that I'll paint a darker bronze because I'm looking for something thrifty. So as soon as I've got these knobs on, I'll be posting right here!

The next portions of the project are the extended island top and the legs - both of these I'm hoping to finish this week coming up, so I'll keep you posted!