PAINTED CHINA CABINET MAKEOVER BEFORE AND AFTER

Kicking off the week with my recent painted china cabinet makeover before and after! I love seeing other people’s furniture makeovers and Facebook Marketplace finds so I was excited to transform this one and share it with you all! I found this vintage china cabinet on Facebook Marketplace for $175 (!) and fell in love with the fretwork overlay and the idea of bringing more storage to our dining room, which is admittedly one of the least finished spaces in our home and yet one we walk through every day. There are so many traditional pieces of wood furniture like this one readily available and priced affordably these days as they can feel a little old-fashioned, but I knew we could use the additional space for glassware and serving pieces and was excited to breathe new life into it with a coat of paint that would make the wood details pop.

PAINTED CHINA CABINET MAKEOVER

china cabinet makeover before and after on design darling

shirt  //  jeans

PAINTING WOOD FURNITURE

“I can’t believe you would paint a china cabinet!” I received more than one message like this on Instagram and I know there are many purists out there who recoil at the mere suggestion of painting wood furniture, but I say “you do you” when it comes to what will make you happy in your home and beyond! I understand people’s mixed feelings about painting furniture (and I love a good piece of wood furniture in its natural state too!), but older pieces of wood furniture like this one are often extremely sturdy and well-made and I think giving them a fresh coat of white paint (or any color of your choice!) is a great way to make them feel more current without buying something lower quality and less likely to stand the test of time.

Our dining room already has an old pine credenza that I love from my childhood home and the dark stain on this china cabinet was in a totally different color family, so I knew I wanted to go in a different direction. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve definitely gotten more excited about adding more traditional wood pieces to our home (like this dresser in our living room, another Facebook Marketplace find!), but I prefer a mix of finishes as opposed to the formality of all matching dark wood furniture. I also think painting a very traditional piece like this china cabinet gives it a much more casual feel, which feels appropriate for our young family and the way we personally live in our home, but there are plenty of similar pieces available if the dark wood is more your style!

china cabinet makeover before

wood china cabinet before

china cabinet makeover before and after

…and painted china cabinet after!

PAINTED CHINA CABINET MAKEOVER BEFORE AND AFTER

If you want to try your own hand at painting furniture, I would look for a similar piece of furniture on a site like Facebook Marketplace, swatch a few different shades of white paint, and set aside at least a couple weekend days to get the job done! I happen to love painting myself — I think I painted six or seven rooms in our house just before Teddy was born! — but I knew this was a painted furniture job for a professional given the intricate woodwork on the top of the piece and the fretwork overlay on the glass doors, which would have taken me a lot of time and not come out nearly as well. My go-to furniture painter had closed during the pandemic (such a bummer!) but thankfully I found another local painter who did a fantastic job. Of course the paint job cost significantly more than I paid for the piece in the first place, but the all-in cost was still much less than it would have been to purchase a new china cabinet of comparable quality. If you’re local and looking to have kitchen cabinets or furniture painted, you can call or text Victor at (203) 280-3444. He did an incredible job in a pretty short amount of time and actually delivered the piece to our home (thankfully the top and bottom are two separate pieces!) so we didn’t have to worry about damaging the paint job in the trunk of our car. I seriously need to prioritize creating my Fairfield County guide so I can share resources like this in one place, but a bunch of you requested his information via Instagram so there you go! 

painting china cabinet makeover before and after

CHOOSING A FURNITURE PAINT COLOR

Any room in our house that isn’t wallpapered is painted in Behr Ultra Pure White in a satin finish, but I didn’t want to paint this china cabinet the exact same white paint color as our walls. I do plan to add wainscoting and wallpaper to our dining room in the future, so I chose a slightly more traditional / less bright shade of white paint, Benjamin Moore White Dove, to make over this piece of furniture. The Oomph side tables in our living room are painted this shade and it’s a slightly warmer white paint than our walls so I knew I would like it in our dining room as well! But I always recommend pulling swatches and/or painting samples since even white paint colors read so differently from room to room and certainly from house to house. I chose White Dove in high gloss for this piece and the finish is gorgeous in person! I kept the original hardware as is and I think it pops so much more against the new coat of paint.

I hope you enjoyed this little before and after! Maybe it will even inspire some of you to breathe new life into old pieces you’re holding onto? You can’t underestimate the impact of a fresh coat of paint! Would love to see any of your furniture makeovers if you decide to give it a try!

*photos by Julia Dags