Upcycled/refurbished/reconstructed kitchen cart |Keeping it Real

Hello, and welcome! As you've probably noticed from the title, I'm not even sure how to name this particular project. Upcycling, painting or refurbishing furniture of any kind is not something I gravitate towards in any give day. I admire those who do, I may even pin a few inspiring photos and tutorials here and there, but I rarely say "let's upgrade this or that" or "let's paint the credenza a different color". I have many crafty endeavors, but furniture isn't one of them.

So...

Cue in a wooden kitchen cart with a while tiled top that I bought a zillion years ago when my husband and I got married and moved into our first apartment.

Many years later, add in a pet bunny whose favorite pastime was to chew our kitchen furniture, including said cart. We lost her unexpectedly last summer, but her chewing efforts certainly lived on:

Earlier this year, I started searching for a replacement of the original cart (we also replaced the kitchen table and chairs, but those were from Ikea so it was easy), but I didn't find one with a tiled top (which I love because it's very easy to clean), not to mention that I discovered most similar sized carts were pretty expensive (even the Ikea ones).

I kept looking for alternatives, until the day my husband sent me the photo below, of a cart that was almost the same as ours and that someone had discarded at the curb near our neighborhood trash cans. It almost seemed like a miracle. Of course I told him to take that cart home.

This "new" cart was slightly wider than our original one, was missing one of the metal baskets and (in case you hadn't noticed yet), was painted orange. Very, very orange.

Still, I knew it was my best chance to "heal" my kitchen cart. It took me a while to devise a plan. I ended up using the legs and the two wooden bars from the orange cart to replace the original ones, and kept the top, baskets and drawer of my old cart.

It did take me a while to get rid of the orange paint and the white primer below it in order to get to the original wood color. Let's just say someone once upon a time made a really good job of painting their little cart orange.

I assembled this new cart (which is a mix of the old and the orange) and instead of paint used a slightly colored regular wood varnish (after a misstep with a spray varnish my husband insisted in using because the process would be much faster but in fact turned out to be a disaster).

Now I have my kitchen cart back just the way it was (no one else needs to know it's a sort of Frankenstein retold), and for just a fraction of what a new cart would have cost me.

(disclaimer: the photo above was taken the day before my usual shopping day at the farmers' market near us, so the cart was almost empty; it's usually full of all sorts of fruit and vegetables that do not need to be refrigerated)

Overall it was not a particularly easy project (at least for me). I'm glad I did see it through, though, even if it's not something I want to repeat any time soon.

Have fun, and happy Wednesday!