My Vintage Buffet- A Plea for Help

How are you on this Monday? We are having one of the worst winters we have had in years here in West Virginia, and I have to say, a few snow days were just fine, but we didn’t have school at all last week, and it snowed more over the weekend, so we are going stir crazy around here! I am ready for spring!

Let’s talk about my buffet, shall we? I have owned this buffet and mirror since 1992, and it was old when we bought it. We used to own the table, chairs and hutch too, and I sold all but these two pieces. Man, was I so stupid or what? Seriously, one of the dumbest decisions I have ever made. I love this buffet, and it provides much needed storage in our dining room/office. I actually cleaned it out and re organized it last week, but that is for another post. I made a small tweak to it recently. Can you tell from looking at this first picture what I did?

I rub and buffed the hardware! And it made such a difference! I bought the rub and buff to use on the brackets for our new shelves over our desk. This buffet is in the same room as the shelving. I was loving the rub and buff, and on a whim I decided to use it on this hardware.

The hardware is pretty, but it was really sad and dingy looking. I love the new life the rub and buff gave them! I have not done much with the décor on the buffet since taking down our Christmas décor. I just needed some room to breathe I guess. So it looks pretty simple right now. But this is one of my favorite places to decorate. You can see some different ways I have decorated here, here, here and here.

This buffet needs some love. I know this, yet I struggle with fear of changing it. You can see in this picture below that some of the trim is missing from the cabinet doors. I am sure I could fix that. But the finish is really showing its age. I would love to paint it, but I am afraid of ruining it.

I would love to have some advice. What do you think I should do with this piece? I really want to paint it, but what color would you suggest? If I do paint it, I want it to be a color that I am not going to tire of for several years. and if I do paint it, do I paint the mirror too? Or should I leave it as is? It is still in good shape. I know of a family member who is at our house frequently who will die if I alter these pieces! But I think they could be fabulous if I do them right!

The rub and buff did make an improvement to this piece, but I would really love some comments and opinions on how I could give my buffet a new life. So PLEASE, help a sister out! What would you do if you owned this buffet?

Update: Someone made a comment and pointed out that she didn’t know what the rest of the room looks like, so here are a couple of pictures of the rest of my dining room/office. Please keep in mind that I will most likely paint this table and chairs at some point, or buy new ones. So I do not need this buffet to match them. This dining room is a work in progress, and you can click here to see my list of things to do in this room.