Hello! Here's a fun little makeover for a Wednesday. Do you remember when I found this kitchen cart on the sidewalk on my way to pick up Louisa from school last year? I wheeled it home with West in the carrier, and the wheels kept falling off, and my whole neighborhood cheered me on and helped when they could until I got it the many, many, long, sweaty blocks back to my apartment. It was a beautiful moment.

But it was not, sadly, a beautiful cart. I had big plans for it. Or rather, big, hazy, vague ideas about how I'd make it better, and no time, and a list of other things to do about a mile long. So it stayed like this - bland, white, faded wood trim - for months. Maybe a year even?

There was a little work on the inside of the cabinet, to convert it to a functioning snack and coffee station. But the outside remained woefully ugly until a couple weeks ago. At that point, I decided it was time to work on both the little bar cart and the big kitchen island. I started by sanding them both down, and re-staining the top wood area around the white tile

Ah, yes. Here, you can see my working conditions: the yellow glow of the post-bedtime lights, and a (fantastic homemade pina colada). I used Rustoleum's Special Walnut, and I was happy with the result. It changed the cart's vibe almost instantly. You may be wondering why I only did the top: I thought the rest might look nice a smooth, glossy black.

And I was right! Looks nice, doesn't it? Well, except for those ugly splotches on the doors. I wanted to change out the hardware, and then decided I wanted to change its placement as well, so I smoothed the existing hardware holes with putty. Then I sanded everything down nice and smooth...

And my new, shiny black paint started to peel off. In big swathes. The doors were a mess. Such a mess that I thought I'd see how the cart looked without them, before I dove into any kind of salvage work.

Things weren't off to a great start, but, after a swing and a miss with some horrid cheap marble-patterned paper (that I somehow didn't get a shot of), I settled on some copper-toned Con-Tact paper.

...and then played Emily Henderson and styled the heck out of it. I had a lot of fun, actually, though there were a couple casualties thanks my to little helper. (More on said casualties later).

This one. Don't be fooled by that ridiculously handsome face: He's trouble! Case in point: He's holding that bowl of poker chips because he's about to pour them into the blender to make a "smoothie." I'm finding lots of similar treasures in similarly inappropriate spots these days. But I digress. Back to the bar cart.

So, whaddya think? I might try the doors again some day - in my spare time - but for now, I think it looks pretty nice! Not bad for a side-of-the-road find, a roll of Con-Tact paper and some "oops" paint from the hardware store, eh?