Yardstick Buffet Tutorial

 I am so excited to be sharing this tutorial with all of you today.  But first I would like to remind all of you that Crafting with the Stars Week 3 is open for voting until Tuesday night at 10pm.  SO PLEASE go vote! and if you could vote for mine that would be REALLY awesome.  To bad I can't tell you which one it is and they are all really great.

On to the buffet...

It was really a lot of fun to create.  Let's get right to the tutorial, shall we?

First you are going to need to get your hands on a LOT of yardsticks.   You will find the best priced and coolest yardsticks at antique type stores.  Call around and see what you can find, they should be between $1 and $3 depending on size and how old they are.  You can also find yardsticks at teacher supply stores, Office Depot type stores, craft and fabric stores, Walmart, Lowes, and Home Depot.  I am going to warn you that craft and hobby store charge like $5 to $7 for their yardsticks.  I didn't buy any yardsticks that were more that $4.99.

Alright...  I think we have fully covered getting the yardsticks.

On to the buffet.

I picked this pretty piece up at DI for $30.  It is a SOLID piece.  I started by removing the pulls and the using  the good old hitting the end of a flat head screw driver with a hammer trick to remove the scalloped trim. Already it looked SO much better.

I painted the whole thing with about 3 coats of blue paint (with the exception of the doors, they got one coat).    I recently realized I have been using surprising number of Martha Stewart products lately.  I kinda feel like Martha and I have gotten pretty close the last few months.  I am not sure if it is because her stuff is just always good stuff, or if it because there is just so much of it out there that I can't help but buy her products.  Anyway, the paint is Martha Stewart Plumage.  While painting and sanding and painting and sanding and painting again I decided to leave the legs and bottom of the buffet with the wood stain it already had.  Once it was painted I used my FAVORITE glaze to give it a warn look.  BTW it is Martha Stewart Black Coffee Glaze and it is so pretty.

While my paint was drying I cut my yardsticks to fit horizontally on the drawers and vertically on the doors.  To attach the yardsticks I first used liquid nails in a caulk gun and then I nailed down the ends of any sticks that weren't laying right.

Once all the sicks were on and the liquid nails was dry I used restoration oil and a clean (lint free) cloth to stain the yardsticks.  The older sticks went really dark and the newer ones barely changed color at all.  This gave the front a really nice stripey look.  Although you don't know for sure what color the wood will turn when you use the oil, try to think about the end result and stagger the old sticks and the new ones.

Okay, we are really close to being done.

That is a pretty picture huh.  Anyway I did have to re-drill the holes for the pulls and since I made it thinker with the sticks on the front I had to drill the back a little wider so the screw could go all the way through.  And that is it.  oh, by the way the pulls are also Martha Stewart pulls from Home Depot.  See what I mean... I just can't escape her.  It is like she reading my mind.

PS please go vote.

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