The Big Reveal: Buffet Photos

As long as it has taken me to finish my mom's buffet, I feel like I should have Ty Pennington standing in front of it saying, "Move that bus. Move that bus." Too bad he was all booked up today, LOL. Anyway, I did the best I could with the photos. It's storming, and my camera's flash still hates me. I tried changing the exposure in both directions, and the pics still came out with this big glow in the middle. Either the room is too small for the flash, or the flash was reflecting off the paint. I'm just not sure which. Regardless, I gave up and just took the darn things without a flash, which made them darker than I would have liked. The colors also aren't as vibrant as they are in person. For instance, the "warm butter" color is a lot more yellow than it looks in the picture. Still the pics will do until the sun comes out in Atlanta and I can take some better ones.

The last one is a little fuzzy. I had a picture that was less fuzzy earlier, but the colors were all wrong. I cropped this one out of another picture so you could see why it took me so long. That's avacado green on the bottom, then dark blue, red, brown, dark green, brown, red, blue, red, brown, dark green, and finally avocado green.

Here is the paint sample so you can see the real color of the buffet.


Here is where I got the colors from, although again the colors are a little screwy because of the weather and the flash. The lighter green comes from the the border around the main part of the poster.



I had to add a little blue to the buffet, which I don't think is in the cafe picture, so I could display my mom's blue and white vase, plus tie it into my blue curtains and futon cover.

The only things that aren't original to the buffet, other than the color, are the flower on the bottom drawer and the knobs. The original flower is just gone period. I have a feeling it's probably lost somewhere in the junk store that my mom bought the buffet from. As for the original pulls, they used to be on the buffet, but were taken off post-purchase. Unfortunately, I could not find what my mom did with them. I have this vague recollection of telling her once that I would keep them so she wouldn't lose them, but I can't find them in my house either. Until I do, the green glass knobs will have to do.

The brown swirls, meanwhile, aren't freehand. They depict where the wood is engraved. I just went back and added brown paint in the engravings to make them stand out. For the two drawers, I had to buy a wood engraver and make the engravings deeper because, without the damaged veneer surrounding them, they were so shallow that I didn't think they would stand out.

I know that the colors aren't everyone's cup of tea. I'm sure even my mom would have just painted it one solid, neutral color like white or beige. However, as you can see from this picture of my kitchen chairs, I like color.

Plus, I thought the colors might distract you from the areas that are still damaged and where my spackling is less than stellar.

Here is my next project. I found this chair at the flea market several years ago. Since it has legs and flowers on it very similar to the buffet and is in the same room with the buffet, I want to paint it to match. I just have to reglue the legs first.

After repainting it, I plan on using a bright green dress of my great grandmother's that looks like it was made in the 50's or 60's to recover the seat. Hopefully, it's a project that won't take anywhere near as long as the buffet. If I end up hating it, I can always strip the chair later and restain it.

For those of you who didn't see the before shot of the buffet, here is a link: Before Shot. I wish I had a before picture of the whole thing, but I don't. Maybe at Thanksgiving,I can find one in my sisters' box of pictures. If I find one, I'll post it so you can see the difference.

As for my fellow Entrecarders, I will try my hardest to catch up on drops tomorrow, assuming I can stay clear of the Entrecard viruses and disabling popups. I'm sorry I haven't been returning your drops drop for drop, but at least now you can see why I haven't. I'll be making a list of blogs as I go along, too, in case I hate the ads TPTB plan on running next week. I'm not saying that I'm leaving Entrecard as of yet, but I am definitely thinking about it.