China Buffet Makeover: Before and After

A major part of the kitchen remodel (read about kitchen remodel here) was taking out a awkward pantry closet.   The original plan was to make a better, wider, less deep pantry.  I had an inspiration from pinterest that I liked and wanted Mike to build for me.   Here is the link to see that idea here.

One morning Mike ask me to come out on the sun porch with him and he wanted to see what I thought about using my china buffet to cut down to use to make the pantry.   We were going to make it like cabinets instead of like a closet because we wanted to tie it in with the kitchen.

Why was my china buffet on the sun porch?   There was absolutely no room to put it anywhere in my small house, and I couldn't bear to get rid of it.  The only place that it would fit is on the porch. I had asked Mike to make it for me back in 2003 and he gave it to me for my birthday.    It was one of the first wood projects that he made and I love it.   I had wanted a country hutch that was open so that I could play with my dishes, and that matched the wood of my existing dining room table.  Here is my handsome husband giving it to me back then.

He was never satisfied with the look of it.  He would say that it looked like something that should be in  your garage, but I have always loved it.   Here it is decorated for the first time.   

Decked out for Fall on the sun porch in 2009

Sadly, our porch is not insulated, and so only in the Spring and the Fall is it comfortable enough to sit out there and enjoy.   So it often becomes a catch all of things that I don't know what to do with in the winter and the summer.  The moisture was starting to hurt the wood, and there were several nicks in it from several moves.   The buffet was holding tons of stuff...and so after I spent a couple of days cleaning it out to get ready for the renovation, here is what it was looking like.   

Pitiful!  Obviously it was not fulfilling its original intent!  But I just couldn't let him turn it into a pantry!   We cooked up the idea to bring it in and update it to fit into our new kitchen where the pantry would have been.   Here is the final product.

This is what he did to update it.

He took off the old crown molding and went with a more simple
trim to match the cabinets in the kitchen.

He added some bead board and a craftsman
type trim to the cabinet doors and drawers and
painted it navy blue like the rest of the kitchen.

He added feet to the bottom of the cabinet to
raise it up about 5 inches and make it "less like
something you would have in your garage."

We painted the hinges and knobs oil rubbed
bronze, and moved the location of the knobs
on the cabinet doors to match the kitchen cabinets.

He made a new countertop for it.  

He added bead board to the back of the hutch.  

Again:

Before

After

So...I lost the pantry, but added a piece that I love even more now.  It holds tons of storage, and I think it makes a great addition to my new kitchen!