Around the time my parents got married my mom was given this buffet which at the time was in pretty good shape, had veneer in all the right places and there may have been a dent or scratch here an there but it looked good. (or so I've been told, I wasn't actually there of course). So since my parents lived in a modest house there wasn't room for a fancy buffet in their kitchen so my mom stored it in a barn at my grandparent's farm. And there it sat......for about 30 years!
Even though they covered it, as you can well imagine with 30 years of rodents and birds, bugs and a leaky roof, the buffet was not in great shape.
Here's the "kind of before" picture. (I forgot to take an actual before picture..oops. Bad blogger!)
This was right after we pulled it out of the barn. The veneer was barely hanging on in some places. It was just sitting on the top of it. Luckily any time my grandparents were out there and saw a piece on the ground, they'd pick it up and put it in the drawer. The legs had these weird pineapple things all around each leg that I promptly removed. Most of them were falling off anyway.
I asked my dad to help me because he's a carpenter and I hadn't flipped any furniture before. I told him I wanted to do most of it but I wanted him to help so I wouldn't do it wrong! Plus who wouldn't want to do projects with their dad? :) Most of the project was sanding and finishing but we did have to beef up the cabinets so I can put dishes in them and if I did that in the condition it was in they'd end up in a big pile on the floor in pieces. We also nailed up the drawers a bit so they weren't about to fall apart at any minute. So here's a better picture of it after we removed all the loose veneer.
This one is lying on it's back but you get it. I was on the fence about whether I should paint it or just stain it but after I saw what was under the veneer on that bottom drawer my mind was made up for me. It was such a pretty oak wood grain that I couldn't cover it up again or I'd be arrested by the woodworking society or something. Bad joke but anyway, covering it up would be a crime!!
Look at the top of this thing too! Fantastic wood texture am I right?? And this was all covered with veneer before. Who would do that to such handsome wood? See that dark spot on the left side of that picture on the top? That was where the drip in the roof of the shed was and it rotted out some of the wood in that spot. Luckily though it didn't go all the way through because the thickness of the wood on top is pretty substantial.
Little by little we used wood glue to attach all the pieces of veneer detail back in place. If you look closely in the above pictures you can see my dad's blue clamps in place. He only had about 8 clamps to use and there were about 30 pieces we needed to glue back on so this was quite a process. In the meantime, we stained and sanded the top, the bottom drawer, and the silverware drawer.
We filled the rotted spot on top with wood filler, which looks a little different color but after we stained it it blended in nicely.
The picture above is what it looked like after we stained the drawers and the top. :) Love, love, love!!
And here's how it looks in our dining room!!! So super cute! it's like it was meant to be there this whole time!
We used to have a piano there but it has gone back to my great aunt's side of the family and is being played by her great-grand kids. :)
So here's the whole thing before and after!
