DIY/Upcycling – Old Furniture Turned Bar Area

by The House house

2 Materials

$20

4 Hours

Medium

I love upcycling old pieces of furniture to match the decor of our new house. Today I’m going to tell you about how I used an old table and wine racks to make a ‘bar area’ in the nook in our kitchen.

The nook in our kitchen was to small for a dining table, plus the actual dining room is right next door so we didn't want to have a table, then another table in the next room almost right next to each other. Here is the solution we came up with for filling this space using some of our old furniture.

diy upcycling old furniture turned bar area

We’ve had these black wine bottle and wine glass holders from Pottery Barn for YEARS and still love them. We wanted to use them somewhere and figured they’d look good in that nook. We also had a pub table from Target that fit in this spot perfectly. However, once we put them in place these black pieces stuck out like a sore thumb in our space.

I painted our kitchen table, bar stools, and our coffee table and end tables so I thought, why not paint these?! So I did. And my husband added a shelf to the table too. Here is how we did it…

I put all the materials outside in my ‘workshop’ aka the covered pool area, found some left over paint in the garage (Top Sail by Sherwin Williams) and mixed up some chalk paint.

For those that aren’t familiar with chalk paint, it is awesome. Chalk paint allows you to paint something without having to sand or prep. They sell chalk paint at most hardware stores and on amazon but since I was using paint from my garage I just mixed my own using the recipe below.

chalk paint recipe

1/3 cup plaster of Paris

1/3 cup water

mix these 2 ingredients together first

then add 1 cup of paint

stir until smooth and mixed thoroughly

My husband got to work on the table adding a shelf. He does the construction stuff around here and I am the painter/decorator. We make a good team. 🙂 We thought it needed a shelf to break up the space, and so I could add my pretty decor.

He used 2 pieces of wood from the garage that were perfect for shelf brackets (see him holding one below). I am not even sure where these came from, but he likes to save things like this for future projects. We bought a piece of wood from Home Depot and cut it down to size to use as the actual shelf. First he made holes in the brackets and the table so he could insert wooden dowels to make sure they were plenty strong (again the dowels had been saved from some piece of furniture we put together at one point in time). Once they were attached with the wooden dowels, he screwed in the brackets to the legs of the table using heavy duty screws. Then we attached the shelf to the bottom of the brackets (see 3rd pic below) using wood glue and small nails. That was pretty much it. Instant shelf!

Then I got to work painting the entire thing. Below is how it looked in progress. Once the paint dried, I used several coats of MinWax Polycrylic to protect the piece from getting scratches or chips.

Once everything was dried we put them back in the same spot and I added my collection of blue bottles, a gather sign and some other coastal decor. I think it looks much better and blends in with the current colors. And yes I know the water dispenser and cat food are still there and look ugly but there really isn’t anywhere else to put them. (I know, I know!)

This just goes to show ya that you can paint and upcycle your old stuff to fit your needs, and all it takes is a little elbow grease. Once I get sick of this look I might paint it again. Who knows.

Hope you enjoyed this project. Please check out my blog for lots more DIY and home decor ideas.

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