I love having a bar cart! It’s such fun decoration, real cute and easy to serve friends a quick drink when they stop in! I’ve had this utility cart from IKEA for about a year, I spray painted the frame gold when I first bought it to match the rest of my house, but then I left it alone from there., at the time it was enough.
Then I got bored with it, it was a little plain and I wanted something a little more dressed up! So I recently spent a few weeks shopping around for a new bar cart. They’re pretty pricey, and I knew it wasn’t a necessity, there are plentyyy of other things I’m looking around for for our home!
Sooo when I was browsing amazon, and came across this genius that is marble contact paper, (that legit looks like the real thing!), I knew instantly I would update my current bar cart for under $10!
You guys, it came out soooo much better than I ever expected! My husband came home from work the night I did it and says ‘wow! it looks like it costs hundreds of dollars!’ It really looks way fancier, way prettier, and I love it so much!
It was also super easy to do! The contact paper is incredibly simple to work with, it’s self adhesive and you can put it down, peel it up and try again many, many times…any bubbles that came up were easy enough to rub out with a dry towel, and it looks so so real! I want to marble alllll the things now!
Read on for instructions, though I realize it’s pretty self explanatory, and check out how I styled our bar cart!
Supplies:
- Bar Cart (I had this one here)
- gold spray paint
- marble contact paper (this is the exact one I used)
- pencil
- measuring tape
- scissors
- dry hand towel
Directions:
If you’re buying the utility cart new from IKEA, (which you should, for only $30!) build the frame and spray paint it gold, keep the shelves out of it.
If you’re just covering shelves, remove them from your current bar cart if you can, it’s much easier to cover them if you can wrap the contact paper under the edges. If you can’t, no biggie, I did one with the shelf in the cart and it worked fine, just a little more work is all.
Begin by wiping down all your shelves, you don’t want any dust particles left or they will leave little dots in your paper.
Next, measure your shelves (don’t forget any edges) If you’re using the IKEA cart, I measured and cut my contact paper at 20 1/2″ long by 16 1/2″ wide. I did that for three of them, one for each shelf. This was just enough to cover the tops and wrap around the edges. So roll out the contact paper, make your markings, and cut as straight as you can. (To help this, I measured and made a marking 3-4 times along the paper for a straighter cut)
When you start applying the paper, begin by peeling up a few inches at first and lining up the edge of the contact paper against the edge of the shelf. Stick it on a few inches at a time, rubbing out any bubbles with a towel as you go, and pull the paper slowly.
Once you cover the top, and any bubbles have been pushed out, you need to cut the corners a bit to fold the paper down. As you can kind of see in the photo, I cut into the corners in a sort of triangle shape, then push the paper down from the top first, and then fold it into the corner from each side. (Almost like when you’re wrapping a present, or making hospital corners when making a bed! ha!)
Once your corners are folded and your edges are wrapped, you can place your shelf into your cart. Repeat the process with the other two shelves and you’re stylin!
So easy, right?! It’s so fun, so pretty, and such a fabulous budget friendly upgrade! What do you think?!