Growing up in the '50's and '60's, my Mom always had a cart in the kitchen to hold all the things she needed next to the stove. Later it was relegated to the basement for laundry use. It was an iconic turquoise. I acquired it 4 years ago and promptly dismantled it for restoration.
It clearly had suffered over the years. I sanded and oiled the casters and soaked them in rust remover. They weren't that bad and rolled well.
The handles weren't that bad except around the bolt holes, so I polished them up.
I forgot to take pictures of the intervening painting process, but I sanded the shelves with a fine grit sandpaper and steel wool, sprayed on an undercoat, preserving the Cosco label, and found a perfect match for the original color.
I switched out the worst shelf for the bottom and she looks great!
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My next cart was found in a garage at an estate sale and was a tiny version of ones I had seen. When I looked it up I found that it was only produced in one year, in red, pink, or yellow, and was a child's version. Mine was a yellow one that had been sloppily painted red.
This one took a lot more sanding and paint removal.
This cart had the cheaper plastic wheels. The casters were pretty rusty and needed a lot of work. I painted them chrome.
Sanded, primed, and painted the shelves. I had to look at a lot of yellow paint to get just the right '50's color. I did save the label. It's covered with tape in the picture, but it was pretty messed up with the red paint.
Isn't she cute? That's what's left of my mother's Primary Color Pyrex set of mixing bowls on the shelves.
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The last one I restored has been sitting in MY garage, unloved and covered with rusty paint cans since I bought my house in 1994. It had belonged to the former owner and he had left it behind.
My garage has a dirt floor, so the wheels and casters had suffered badly. The parts that had had contact with the soil had eroded and chipped off and they didn't turn any more.
My first job was to get them rolling again. That took a lot of brute force and WD40, but eventually I got them all to move, and oiled them. Now my problem was to make them round again. I had read about Sugru and it's ability to fix anything, so searched some out and bought the black.
It worked great! Then I sanded the wheels to remove excess Sugru and sanded off the rust.
Then I painted them chrome. I could have used a brand new old stock set of plastic wheels I have, but wanted to use the original rubber, or whatever that is.
Then on to the shelves and handles. They were a lot more work than the other carts because they were a lot more rusty, but the handles are solid chrome, so a lot of fine grit sandpaper made them look great. I put metal polish on them, too.
Since I don't take off all the old paint and don't sand down to metal, the paint job isn't nice and flat and shiny. I did multiple coats and used 2 cans of spray paint, and I'm satisfied, but it isn't perfect. When the sun's not shining on it it looks pretty good!
This is one of the carts that had an electric socket and cord on it so the hostess could wheel it into the living or rec room and make coffee or fondue on it. Mine was missing, and I'm still searching estate sales for a socket and cord to restore.
