I acquired this Ikea cart over a year ago on Craigslist for about $10 and had high hopes for flipping it. In the interim, we briefly used it as a grilling cart, with the table grill on top and various grilling materials on the shelves below. I would really just like to upgrade our grill, but the hubs swears by his tiny table top grill, which does seem to get the job done, so we'll continue.
I had read a few Pinterest tutorials and looked at multiple pictures of other flipped carts online, including the below options:
First, I had the hubs sand down the top. It had a little wear/tear from the previous owners, which came up no problem. I then separated the butcher block top from the rest of the cart. I stained it, first with two coats of Classic Grey. It was still not evenly accepting stain so I added one coat of Dark Walnut. Bam!
After one coat of Classic Grey...
After two coats of Classic Grey, still uneven...
With just one coat of Dark Walnut, a much more polished/finished look.
I then began painting the cart white, with my favorite paint color, Linen White. I primed it with a coat of spray paint, but got rained out before I could spray all the nooks and crannies. Which meant I had to paint the nooks and crannies by hand. Over multiple days. From multiple angles.
In the future, I will stick to spray paint, as I had to redo painting multiple times due to drips and brush marks. It was easy to sand down and peel off the drips. I bought new brushes, rollers, and foam brushes to use for future projects as well.
I then put on protective coats over everything using Polycrilic, matte for the wood top and satin for the cart. I reassembled everything and decided to add some leftover towel hooks, a new towel bar, and new wine glass racks. I spray painted everything bronze with this spray paint so it would all match.
Finished result:
