Buffet Upcycle- Paint meets Wallpaper - high eight home & living

Buffet Upcycle- Paint meets Wallpaper

BEFORE

Tied of looking at your solid dark brown furniture like I am? Remember when we changed over all our Baltic Pine furniture (that we paid a bomb for back in the day) to all matching dark  furniture? Yes I’m talking matching dining table, buffet, console, entertainment unit, coffee table and side tables. And this was just the living areas I’m talking about, without going through the rest of the house. I still have a couple of dark Jimmy Possum  pieces that I cannot change over or paint (because yes I paid a bomb for these also) but slowly I now have a nice eclectic mix throughout the house of  dark, teak and painted pieces.

Which brings me to share my latest upcycle painted project. My objective was to change this dark brown buffet into a mid century kind of look with a pop of colour. I didn’t want to just paint this buffet in a solid colour so I decided the top would stay dark to tie in with the Jimmy Possum mirror above and the existing console table the other side of the room.

The buffet had a shaker style door so I decided to add a retro touch and texture to the piece by adding some wallpaper to the doors. I searched on eBay ‘Retro Style Paintable Wallpaper’ and came across the supplier ‘Anaglypta’. Their product description was easy to apply and easy to paint. This sounded like the perfect product to me. The design I decided to go with was Deco Paradiso (retro inspired). The pattern was similar to my floor rug so this was going to be perfect.

The colour I decided to paint the buffet was Fusion Mineral Paint Homestead Blue, a beautiful blue that has grey and muted teal undertones. I decided on this colour because my floor rug has this colour in it and my kitchen splashback tile has similar splashes of blue. Although my home is far from mid century style or retro if you like, this was my way of injecting a touch of it into my my home without looking out of place.

STEPS:

1. Clean your piece thoroughly with TSP and give it a scuff sand ( 220 grit or thereabouts is ideal)

2. Remove the doors and cut out the wallpaper to fit the area you wish to cover- a stanley  knife is the perfect tool with a very sharp blade to give a nice clean cut edge.

3. Brush on an appropriate glue all over the surface of the wallpaper ( I used a PVA glue) make sure the entire area is covered to avoid any air bubbles. It’s like applying contact to books so if you get air bubbles just work them out with your fingers to get rid of the bubbles. Leave over night to dry.

4. Apply two coats of Fusion Mineral Paint, the colour of your choice to the doors and then to the rest of the piece.

5. Attach the finished doors to the unit and new knobs of your choice.

I hope this has given you some inspiration on upcycling that piece in your home that you are tired of looking at. So before you decide to advertise it on marketplace think how you could upcycle and give it a new lease of life.

Don’t forget to share your painted projects to us we love posting them on our social platforms.

Lisa x