Fast Vintage Kitchen Cart Rehab

We've been up to two things, mainly, around here in the last two weeks.

1. Rain. No additional explanation necessary.

2. Rock. This kind:

My second oldest, Noah, is involved in a summer School of Rock program every year, and it's been a blast. He's the one in the center of the above photo.

So, while waiting for it to stop raining (again) and between rehearsals and practice, I tackled a small project, this kitchen cart, which was lurking around the basement storage room when we moved in:

It was rust on the tops of the shelves, and spider egg cases under the shelves. Ick.

I was really more in the mood initially for a vintage bar cart for the screen porch, but they are another item that have gotten trendy, and therefore expensive. Also, for a screen porch I wanted something a little more sturdy and little less precious. It needed to take the extremes of temperature and a little abuse. Enter the rusty kitchen cart.

In fifteen minute intervals here and there over the last couple of weeks, I dismantled, cleaned, and sanded the cart:

I had a can of spray paint that looked like the old matte gold color of many mid-century metal decor items, but ran out before I got it all done, only to find that they had discontinued that color. You know, AFTER I'd started the project. Forehead slap.

The closest color I found was more dark bronze, which wasn't what I was going for, exactly, but it was close enough, and I was not wanting this to be a production of hunting down the precise color. I wanted it to be done, not another project waiting indefinitely. And, as my brother-in-law likes to say, "It ain't goin' to the fair."

But as I was putting on a second coat, I realized that spraying the darker color around the edges of the shelves and letting the overspray shade into the center, I had a more realistically vintage looking effect than just one solid color would have been anyway:

Happy accidents. Let's hear it for those!

I put it in the corner near the door of the screen porch, which had looked like this before:

And here's the after:

To protect the top I added a vintage tray:

The tiki fork and spoon are in rough shape. They were $1 items from a box of estate auction junk at a flea market. I cleaned them and sanded them a little, but they need restaining and a little additional work. However, I just decided to hang them to get them up off the floor and out of the way, and I have a feeling they'll probably hang there awhile before I get back to them. So for now, we're just going to say they have "patina." Alright? okay. 

While exterior painting remains the goal (c'mon Mother Nature!), this project is getting me a little closer to making the screen porch a place I actually want to spend time in. 

That's a good thing, even if it isn't on the official schedule.