Zebra Drink Cart

The zebra bar cart used as staging that I will tell you about in this blog.  This fireplace was a solid white when I bought the house, and the floor was blonde laminate,  yellow walls now gray with new texture and new 5 inch baseboard.  This is what I do for $$.
 

Judy here again.  I've been busy on a project this week, making a cat house/bed out of a hexagonal side table. HOWEVER, that is not what this is about. 

A few years ago, I discovered that the Ladies Center here in Amarillo takes donated furniture, clothes, baby supplies, art, purses, lamps, almost anything, and sells them really cheap.  I forget what I went in looking for, but I found a cute little book cart.  I had been watching Flea Market Flip a lot, and I had seen a lot of bar carts being made out of lots of different pieces of furniture, and when I saw that book cart, I thought:  bar cart.  Not that I needed one, as I don't drink; but I knew it would work for staging (and I'm using it right now in my house in San Antonio that's for sale) or I might sell it. 

I also knew that I had been wanting to do something in zebra print.  I found a small zebra painting on line, and got myself a canvas and practiced doing a zebra print on it, and yes, I could paint zebra print.

Needless to say, I bought the book cart, and took it home. 

As you can see it was wood and brown.  This was my first attempt at chalk paint.  I bought white at Michaels and started painting the book cart.  The reason I chose it was that it said you would NOT have to sand, and if there is one thing I hate doing, it is sanding.   Let me tell you that it was not a good experience for me.  I hated it.  I hated the look it created, all bumpy, dull and looked as if it needed sanding, which defeated my purpose of using it.  I read online that you are suppose to buy a wax to put on it, and I didn't feel comfortable with that.

So I lightly sanded the chalk paint which I had put 2 coats of on the book cart, and I then repainted it with my  white semi gloss paint I keep on hand for touch ups on my trim.  I liked that look much, much better.  I put several coats of white.

Chalk paint.  Yuck.
 

Semi gloss interior paint

Next I looked at my zebra canvas and copied that on both sides of the cart. 

Just before I tried the paper, see it on bar.

 Then I bought zebra wrapping paper and tried to decoupage it on the shelves, but that was disastrous.  Too flimsy; wouldn't stick, didn't go on smooth like wallpaper would have.  SO I TOOK IT OFF.  I had a carpenter over working outside, and he had seen what I was doing  While he was outside, I decided to just paint the zebra print onto the shelves like I had the sides.  I looked at the paper and my canvas while doing it.  Took about  thirty minutes.  My carpenter came in and said the paper looked good on the shelves as he saw the paper hanging off the bar.  I told him I had painted it, rather than using the paper, and he was so surprised.  He said it looked just like the paper!!  Success!

Just the top painted, but see how I tried to get stripes on sides and top to look like they are continuous.



Close up of how the zebra painting looks.

Next I painted the edges of the shelves black.

Next I spray painted two coats of clear gloss (Rustoleum brand) on all of the cart to give it shine.  Finally, I thought I was through, but someone told me they'd be interested in buying it from me if I added some "BLING".  So I went to Michaels and found some little strips of tiny rhinestones that are self sticking and came back and scattered them across the top and down the sides.  Since that day, my littlest grandson got hold of it while it was holding my t.v. in the converted garage I stayed in while remodeling the house in San Antonio, and picked some of them off before I saw him, so it is now missing some of the rhinestones, and if I ever decided to sell it; I'd have to get some more and put on it.  I never did send the new picture of it with rhinestones or bling to the lady.  I think I just wasn't ready to part with it.

This is it in the converted garage I lived in while remodeling it. 



Black front


 

All in all, I probably spent less than 3 hours working on this project; one of the quickest and cheapest I've done.  I got the book cart for $15 and I used paint I already had on hand.  I bought the wrapping paper and glue for decoupage, and I bought the rhinestones.  That's it.  That's all that I spent.  I think its elegant.