Refinishing an oak buffet with Jill of All Trades

(FOX 2) - This week, Jill Washburn, our Jill of All Trades, takes on an aging buffet and gives it new life. Jill found the oak buffet on Facebook Marketplace and thought that it would make a great storage piece and work surface for her garage workshop. 

But, Jill decided to freshen it up a bit, before putting it to work.

First, Jill removed the existing drawer pulls. They were not in great shape, one was broken, and they gave the piece a dated look. Next, Jill patched some of the holes left behind by the hardware. To do this, she used Durham's Water Putty. It's her "go-to" when it comes to patching. 

It's a powder that is easy to work with. You only need to mix it with water to get a paste-like consistency. Jill's secret trick, though, is to also mix in a little Elmer's glue. Jill says that it sticks a little better that way and she feels it makes for a stronger patch. 

Once she patched the holes on the top drawers, she set the drawers aside to dry. The patches will need a quick sanding later, before she paints them.

Next, Jill removed the rest of the drawers and set them on their backs, so that she could easily spray the fronts of them. Jill chose to use Rustoleum Universal spray paint in Satin Black for this project. It's one of her favorites and it gives a near flawless finish on nearly anything she uses it on.

After shaking the spray can to make sure the paint was mixed well, Jill set about spraying the drawers. She says that light, even strokes are the way to go when spraying, and that it's better to do 2, or possible even 3, light coats versus one heavy coat that may have drips. This paint can be recoated within minutes, so painting can be a pretty quick process.

Once the drawers were done, Jill turned to spraying the main piece, itself.  

First, she gave it a quick wipe-down to remove any dust, since the piece had been sitting in her garage for a few weeks. Again, using long even strokes and light layers of spray, she coated and then re-coated the piece. Jill says that you may want to wear a mask or face-covering to protect from fumes or overspray. Also, pay attention to the wind when spraying, says Jill. Ideally, she says, you want to do something like this on a day with little or no wind.

With nearly everything done, Jill returned to the drawers that had been patched. She gave the patches a quick sanding, to even out the surface. Then she sprayed those drawers with a couple of coats of paint using the same technique as for the others.

Jill said that if she were going to use this piece in the house, she would have masked off the drawers, so that they didn't get over-spray on them. But, since this was just going to be a workshop piece, Jill opted to skip that step.

After the paint had dried, Jill added new hardware (cup handles and knobs) to the drawers that looked better and would function better than the old drawer pulls that had been on the piece. Jill was able to score a bargain on the cup handles by buying a bulk package of them.

Once the buffet was done and put back together, Jill topped it all off with another amazing bargain. Jill had scored a 3' x 6' piece of granite that was saved from a kitchen remodel. She got the granite for free.  (Total score!) She placed it on top of the buffet and it is a perfect match, in both color and size. Jill says that the same qualities that make granite a great work surface in the kitchen, also make it a great work surface in the workshop. It's durable, super smooth, stain-resistant and very easy to clean.

The finished buffet almost looks too good to go into the workshop, says Jill, but that is where it is headed, where she will get many years of service out of it.

PROJECT RATING:  Easy

To watch Jill take you through the process, just click on the video player above.