DIY Bureau Makeover
A Quick & Easy DIY Project to Transform a Piece of Furniture…
I’m so excited to finally show off my DIY bureau makeover project. This project has been a long time in waiting. I purchased this bureau in the summer and it’s been sitting in my home, waiting patiently to be transformed. As I mentioned in my latest webisode on YouTube, it took me a while to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with this piece. I had been looking a so many lightened, bleach wood furniture on Pinterest and I wanted to create something in my home.
After a little soul searching I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to strip it back, keep it natural. I also figured out what I wanted to do in terms of function. It had been working well as a temp desk while I’m still trying to set up my home office, but also a bar cart. I wanted somewhere fun and unique to hold our collection in.
In terms of before, I stupidly forgot to do any before shots for this DIY bureau makeover. You can however see full before on the YouTube episode and below, here are a few shots of the bureau in situ in our home, prior to the makeover…
The Before.
As you can see, the colour is just not quite right for my home. It clashed with our black built-ins. More importantly, I want to introduce more natural wooden furniture pieces into our home and this would help incorporate these features into our home.
The path became clear. This piece needed sanding down, bleaching and finishing. Knowing what mess is this would create and Winter coming (most of this work needed to be done outside) it was time to get started a coule of weeks ago…
The Process.
First thing was to sand the piece of furniture down. This took no time at all, thanks to my trusty sander. From there, it was time to start the bleaching process. This I used a spray bottle with equal parts water and household bleach. This took a couple of layers and about 24 hours, but this finally got the piece lighten down.
Next was a step I wasn’t thinking of doing, but during the project and in the process of sanding down the drawers, I discovered what were the original holes to the bureau. I wasn’t a huge fan of the previous hardware on the bureau, so I decided that whilst the holes were already there, I’d get some new knobs for it. I purchased these ones from Etsy, they are perfect for this piece of furniture. All that was left was to fill the holes, which I painted over with a little black paint to hide the filler.
The final thing to do was to finish the bureau with oil. Now, this took a turn as it made the furniture a little too orange. There was a last minute panic, resanding and bleaching and we finally got the colour that I wanted.
The Finish Results.
The final results is exactly what I wanted. A gorgeous light piece of wooden furniture that looks amazing in my home. It works perfectly as a bar cart (more on that styling another time, I’m still working on it) and it looks great in the living room. I can’t wait to style it once I start working on the rest of the living room makeover in the new year.
I’m very much looking forward to doing a similar process with other peices of furniture in my home. It’s so quick and easy to do so, very much a DIY project that even a beginner could do.