Dining Room Sideboard Makeover

This sideboard is one of my favourites, with it's lovely carved doors and original handles, but it was hidden under years of grime and a dark, dark stain.

It's amazing what some sanding and painting can do to bring a piece to life, here is a step by step of the process and a reveal of the finished sideboard now taking pride of place in our dining room.

This gorgeous 1.8 metre (6 foot) wide sideboard was large and very heavy, luckily it was a local eBay find and we could collect it ourselves.

It had several areas on the body that needed repair, especially the cracks down each side, so it wasn't really suitable to just sand back and stain or oil this piece. But I wasn't worried about that as I was wanting to find a piece I could paint white and leave the top stained wood. The top had a crack in it as well as a few holes where it probably once had a mirrored backboard attached.

The handles were original brass plated but had tarnished in places that had removed the finish, so they needed a makeover as well. There was also a white porcelain and metal handle on the bottom centre doors.

A closeup of the top - dark cracked and dirty!

The carvings on the doors were one of the main features that attracted me to this sideboard, here is a close up.

Gorgeous carving on the doors

Here is our makeover process for the dining room sideboard:

Step 1 : Remove all the hardware and remove all the doors and drawers. Fill all the holes, cracks and other miscellaneous knocks and dents with wood putty and for the larger cracks we used panel beaters bog as it's a lot tougher.

Step 2: Sand back filled areas and the body of the sideboard to 'key' it ready to accept paint. Clean off any sanding dust with a damp cloth or suitable cleaning fluid like prepwash.

The top was sanded right back to the original natural wood and it turned out to be a lovely golden brown so I decided not to stain it and keep it as is because it matched in well with another wooden sideboard I have in the same room. (If you haven't noticed - I sort have a thing for sideboards!)

Step 3: Cover all parts not to be painted with newspaper and tape. This took some time as we didn't want to paint the inside of the cabinet or inside the drawers, but doing the job properly saves sanding off over spray later.

Inside one cupboard is a lovely deep slide out drawer, really useful for holding tall decorative items for the dining table, like decorative centrepieces or candelabras etc used for special occasions.

Slide out drawer under shelf on one side

Step 4: We spray painted this as we didn't want to get heavy paint within the carved areas and for large pieces of furniture it's so much faster. Firstly we used an oil based primer/undercoat as we didn't want the very dark wood bleeding through.

This was followed with a coat of semi gloss in wash and wear paint (the colour is 'Pearl White') so the sideboard could be easily wiped down if it needed it, considering it was in a high traffic area for us and our dogs. Not saying we are a messy bunch - but life happens and sometimes that means mess happens as well.

Step 5: I painted all the hardware after a light rub down with a scourer pad with Rustoleum's Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint - one of my favourite paints to use, it has more depth than just using black and is slightly softer colour wise which I prefer. Sometimes it's little subtle things that make the difference.

Step 6: Put the doors back on and also the hardware. This is one of the fun bits for me, the decorating part is always the best.

Step 7: Loving the colour of the natural wood top, I decided to not stain it and instead just protected it with a coat of clear wax, lightly buffed so it didn't look too shiny.

Step 8: Find a suitable size basket or tray to fit in the middle section that is open. This part is taking the longest - the one I have is nice but not quite wide enough. It's turned out to be quite hard to find one that is both wide enough and not too deep to fit this space - but stay tuned, I have my eye on a wicker tray from the same range that may work better in the space....

Step 9: TBA- I'm considering using a dark wax on the carved areas to make them pop - but that will be another post .

Here is the finished makeover - what do you think? Let me know in the comments section below.