Red Cedar Inspired Upcycled Buffet
Medium
We created this upcycled Red Cedar Inspired Buffet using Unicorn Spit and a homemade black chalky paint and we love it almost too much to sell it!
Unicorn SPiT helped us create a replicated Red Cedar buffet!
We started with this reclaimed china cabinet base - the top of the cabinet had been damaged by its previous owners and while we will probably use it later to make a cool piece, we decided that the bottom was perfect for a buffet and decided to paint it in our favorite black color to update it.
The details on the buffet were amazing already - it is solid wood and just needed to be cleaned up a little before painting.
Made by Huntington Furniture Industries - this piece will last a lifetime! We just wanted to update it and bring it new life!
My sons helped me sand down the top and when we saw the grain, we knew this needed some Unicorn Spit to bring out the beauty of the wood! Unicorn SPiT is a wood stain and glaze that is water based and non-toxic - it comes in an array of color and I knew just what I wanted to do!
This is Red Cedar - and its just an amazing trick of nature that the wood grows like this, with this amazing vibrant streak of red down the center of the wood. Google "Live Edge Red Cedar" and you will see how amazing this wood looks!
I decided to use Midnight's Blackness and Molly Red Pepper! We also decided to use Lici's Ruby Slippers - a new sparkly Unicorn SPiT color that will be available soon - Michelle Nicole had sent me some to try when she first created the new glitter SPiT colors - and I hadnt really found a piece yet that I thought needed some bling - but I knew that it would add a deep rich color that I wanted to capture. I started by putting those colors in lines on the raw wood.
I blended the colors together with my hands - I would suggest a glove for this part. While we usually use our hands to do this and I don't have any worries about toxicity, when I used this much SPiT, the rich pigments in the gel did stain my hands until I could get a good shower!
This is the first blending of the colors together - the Midnight's Blackness looks brown, but as I did more layers, it started to deepen and darken. I also knew it would deepen once we top coated the SPiT.
After the first coat of top coat, I could see the wood really responding to the colors!
The finished buffet looked exactly how I wanted it to look! I love the deep tones of red and black!
I can't wait to see this in it's forever home - I love that the paint and SPiT gave this piece such a clean and contemporary new look!
I will probably still try to epoxy the top soon, I am a little nervous as I have never used epoxy, but Michelle Nicole, the creator of Unicorn SPiT swears by Famowood epoxy, and has done a ton of piece with it - that will be the next step of this project - but I was so excited to see my vision come to life, I couldn't wait to show off this piece! I love how Unicorn SPiT gives furniture DIY'ers a different option to showcase the natural wood of a piece and update it and bring it new life! You can check out more pieces we have done with Unicorn SPit at our Facebook page here - https://www.facebook.com/VintageRustVirginia/ AND you can also join the Unicorn SPiT Question and Answer page here to see more SPiT ideas and inspiration: https://www.facebook.com/groups/UnicornSPiTGelStains/
POST UPDATE - Here is the buffet after several coats of MinWax Clear Gloss Wipeon Poly - it looked like glass. We did 4-5 coats of poly and sanded with 1000 or 1200 grit sandpaper between coats.
The buffet sold quickly and I cannot wait to see pictures of it, in it's forever home!
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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3 of 52 comments
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Looks gorgeous! I love these older (although this one doesn't look very old; it's younger than me, lol), solid wood pieces. They usually have great hardware, and this one doesn't disappoint. You gave it a fabulous new life.
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@Janis Herger Hilton thank you!
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Bbbuuutttiful!!! Love it! Hugs
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