The 1158 Spot: Beautiful Sideboard

I am extremely blessed to have friends that will call or text me with leads to cheap or free furniture. In the past I would take the piece when it was a good deal without really taking the time to scrutinize it to see if it was really something I'd want taking up precious real estate in my garage.

Not anymore.

Now, I'll ask to see pictures and have even walked away from a piece or two if it didn't have good bones or if it needed a lot of work. Why? Because there really isn't a shortage of free or cheap furniture and I'd rather get a piece I really like than something I'm taking just because it's free or worse, because I feel obligated.

So when my friend Steve called me to tell me his boss had some furniture and did I want it, I asked him to send me pictures. Included in several pieces of furniture was this sideboard.
"How much is he asking for it?", I asked. It's free he said but you have to get it out of his driveway today.

I couldn't jump up fast enough.
Um...
a sideboard
with all of this intricate detail
for
FREE?

Yes Please!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I loaded that huge piece into my SUV BY MYSELF! I don't even know how! All I know is that when there's a will there's a way! :)

I wish I could tell you that I got this piece home and started working on it right away...but no. It sat in my garage for a few weeks until inspiration struck.

I love gray. It's the new black in my opinion. Such a classic color. This gray by Americana Décor chalk paint is my favorite. I've painted so many pieces in this color.

I wanted the body to be gray and the top to be stained a dark brown. Unfortunately, the finish was so bad on the top that staining it was going to highlight all of the deep scratches so I decided to do a dark brown wash over it with paint instead. I love how it turned out.

This piece didn't even last a full day in my booth at the Co-Op. It sold so quickly to a friend of a friend. I love that she will get to enjoy this piece for many years to come!

Okay so let's talk about how I transformed this piece:

I sprayed different areas of the piece in gold so that after I painted it and distressed it, some of the gold would peek through.

This is after one coat of chalk paint. So many people get discouraged at this point of the painting process because it doesn't look good.... don't give up! Apply another coat or two of paint and you'll get a beautiful finish!

It's a 100 degrees in my neck of the woods so I've been painting inside of my house! That explains the cardboard on my floor!

This is what I used for the top of the piece. I added a little bit of black chalk paint to this brown to deepen it a bit.

I'm loving all of the beautiful details of this piece. I used a sanding block in a fine grit to get a silky smooth finish as well as accentuate all of those beautiful curves and lines.

I lined the drawers with contact paper.

I applied a white wax over the body of this piece. I love how the white wax settled in the nooks and crannies giving it another dimension.

I also changed the hardware to these beautiful white and gold nobs.

Here's a closer look at the top. Isn't it so pretty. I love how that turned out! I applied Miss Mustard Seed's Tough Coat to the top for a nice strong seal.

I'm often asked if I paint the inside of a piece and most of the time I don't. I just make sure to clean it really well. Painting the inside of these kinds of pieces is so much work and quite frankly not worth it in my opinion. I'll only do it if it really needs it.