About six weeks ago, I blogged about spring fever. North Carolina experienced a crazy-warm, early spring and I bounced out of the winter doldrums hard! I cleaned off the screened porch (only to have the pollen turn it yellow again, and again, and again… ), built a fence around our veggie garden and threw the boys into the backyard every afternoon to enjoy the gorgeous weather and burn off that never-ending energy. At the same time, I also purchased a trio of pieces from someone looking to get rid of the 3 together as a group. One small piece was turned into an adorable bedside table and I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with the other small piece from the lot. But the reason I bought the group, the reason I drove 20 minutes from home in a monsoon to pick them up, was for this piece…
Its seller called the piece an old pine buffet or desk. I won’t bore you with the before pics here (the afters are much prettier!) – but if you want to check out the before pictures and my inspiration for its transformation, check out my earlier blog entry.
As soon as I saw the buffet sitting on a rickety old porch waiting to be loaded into my car, I could immediately envision what I wanted the piece to become. With my spring fever raging, I purchased the old, worn buffet with the intent to refurbish it into a potting bench by day/buffet by night for a screened porch. The 3 base drawers are long and deep and perfect for holding garden tools, placemats and napkins . The drawers’ old hardware was replaced with vintage bin pulls I purchased from a lady at the flea market and cleaned up. The 4 smaller drawers on the desk top are the perfect size for seed packets, outdoor dining utensils and veggie markers. The knobs on the smaller drawers have been replaced with vintage iron knobs with intricate designs.
A lower ledge makes the perfect shelf for wood boxes or wicker baskets. A vintage iron side hook is perfect for hanging your gardening hat, a dish towel or small bucket of garden goodies! Just taking the pictures of the transformed buffet left me yearning to pull on my gardening gloves and dig in the dirt.
But as I refurbished and transformed the “potting bench”, I realized that this piece has so many other uses. It could be used perfectly as a quirky buffet in a kitchen and with a couple of barstools tucked underneath, it could easily serve as a breakfast counter or extra seating. Add a comfy old stool and with all its drawers, storage and workspace, it’s a perfect craft table or computer desk. A true “Jack of All Trades”, I can’t wait to see where this tranformed buffet will end up!
This refurbished potting bench is now avaialble for sale on Storywood Design’s Etsy site!
