I love everything old-fashioned, chic and smelling of money and power. Bar carts are all over Pinterest and a lot are made from IKEA hacks, but an old tea cart? That’s something special. So, when an old tea cart ended up in my possession I was ridiculously excited. All my hopes and dreams were coming true! Except…it wasn’t the bar cart of my dreams…it was a nice tea cart, but not quite what I had in mind. So, like I do with pretty much everything in my house, I started a project when I didn’t have time to and transformed the tea cart into a beautiful bar cart. Here’s what I did and what you can, too:
Choosing colours. This is honestly the hardest part of making my bar cart. I wanted it to be chic and reminiscent of days where everything was gilded with gold. I didn’t cheap out on the paint here and ended up spending $30 on special metallic paint from Rona that made my cart look like a pearl (my favourite type of jewelry). I used my tried-and-true Champagne Mist (you can find this colour all over my closet) for the wheels, table-top and knob on the small drawer. I changed out the knob for something a little more intricate and fitting to my vision, something I actually had lying around from an old door.
I didn’t want to keep the full tea cart look so I took off the sides, sanded and filled in the holes from the screws with wood glue. This is also when I gave the rest of the cart a light sanding and wiped clean.
Take off the wheels, at this moment, unless you’re some sort of wizard master painter.
Use the spray paint first. This is in bold because if you paint the rest of the cart before using spray paint, you’re in for a bad time. Spray paint tends to get places it shouldn’t even with precaution, so get this out of the way first! I ended up using 3 coats because I wanted a darker colour.
Start painting your cart, using as many coats as necessary to achieve your look. I actually ended up doing 5 because the colour was too sheer and the wood bled through.
Freak out because you think the colour is horrible and you ruined a beautiful antique.
Breathe a sigh of relief because the colour dried and looks exactly like your vision.
Add on any additions that are needed like a wine rack…I haven’t found the exact one that I’m looking for so my bottles just lay helplessly by themselves.
Add your bottles, glasses, straws, and any accoutrements you may need.
