When we bought our current house, I knew I wanted a large-ish piece of furniture on one end of the dining room for storage and to display china. I started looking online and knew right away that I did not want to pay full retail for a new piece. I browsed through some online classifieds and found a few good candidates. Here is what we ended up with.
It had definitely been well used and was outdated. We debated between painting or re-staining it. I would have loved to paint it white & distress it a little, but I knew it would just get lost in the sea of white & light colours in our kitchen/dining room. So we decided it would be stained a dark brown to make it really stand out.
It does have the other drawer and a hutch, but my husband was already sanding them down by the time I got out to the garage to take pictures. You'll have to use your imagination for that one. One of the hutch doors had gold paint "criss-crosses" on the glass.
My husband sanded the top of the buffet and all the drawer & door fronts right down to the wood before re-staining it. The stain colour we picked was very dark, and I honestly thought I would have a very dark buffet & hutch when all was said and done. I was a little disappointed when I went out to take a peek after he started staining it. But I am glad that it turned out this way. I love the wood grain that now shows through on the top and front. I also love the accent of the darker colours on the edges and door accents.
He stained the whole thing and put a few coats of polyurethane on to finish it off. I used a razor blade to scrape the gold paint off the glass and we picked out some new hardware that went with the rest of our kitchen and dining room.
I love it!