Antiqued Kitchen Pantries

When I was living in my old apartment, I lucked out on getting these basic white kitchen pantries for $25 a piece from a neighbor in my building.

They were totally fine in the old place, but once my husband and I moved into this house, I knew I had two choices: buy new ones or revamp these ones. Since they were still in such great shape, the choice was obvious – I was going to give them a nice little face lift. The first thing that came to mind was to spray paint them glossy black. I figured it would look sleek and bold in our large kitchen, so I went out and bought about half a dozen cans of paint.

I dragged them out into the garage and got to work. Yes, I even graffiti-ed them because YOLO! Right….? Anyway, many impatiently applied coats of spray paint later (what can I say? I want things done yesterday), I hauled the pantries back inside to admire them in their home. Here’s how they turned out:

All my excitement quickly faded when I saw that a) the glossy spray paint came out unevenly due to my impatience and b) they just made the room feel so much darker. The look I was expecting was completely different from the reality. I was going for a very beachy look and these simply did not fit. I hemmed and hawed, wondering if there was any way I could salvage them. Then it hit me: I had leftover paint in one of my favorite colors (Olympic Icon from Lowe’s in Aqua Chiffon). I’d been dying to try the antiqued look I’ve seen around so much lately and this seemed to be the perfect solution. At this point, I really had nothing to lose since I didn’t like the pantries anyway.

I painted them roughly, letting a little bit of the black peek out (yes, that’s my naughty cat’s paw in the first picture). Once the paint was dry, I sanded it down in areas, focusing mainly on corners and edges. Here’s how they turned out (one of them, anyway. You’ll see the other one once I post the full kitchen reveal):

I ended up putting the pantries on different sides of the kitchen because they make a bigger statement now. I am so glad that I ended up making the mistake I did. Without having the black paint underneath, I don’t think I would have gotten as cool of an effect as I did. These are now some of my favorite pieces in the house!