Whew, this china cabinet has been in the works for months it seems. It just kept getting pushed to the side to work on something else so it’s been sitting there being neglected for so long. It’s time has come finally! She’s been patient long enough!!!! So, I started with this:
You can see a reflection of me taking the picture in the glass if you look. I got this china cabinet many years ago. It was a hand me down from Hot Rod’s great aunt when she was being moved to the nursing home. It was originally a blonde wood (very 70’s!). It was much shorter than this with really squatty legs so I replaced the legs with these slightly taller ones and then painted it the hunter green about 10 years ago when that was the color I was going for in my living room/dining room. Needless to say it was tired and needed an update.
The first step was to empty it out, remove the glass, take the drawer out and then I flipped it over so it was sitting on the top. I wanted to work from the bottom up. So, once it was upside down, I was ready to get started.
I started first by painting the inside of the shelves. I went to Lowes and had them match the Rustoleum Painter’s Touch spray paint Heritage White and the Rustoleum Turquoise spray paints to a satin latex canned paint. I wanted to paint this using rollers and brushes instead of spray paint. My reason behind that is a couple of reasons actually. First of all, this is a rather large piece so if I used spray paint it would take A LOT of paint!!!! Also, it would be very hard to keep the spray paint where I wanted it and not where I didn’t want it since the inside and the outside were going to be 2 drastic different colors.
So, I started on the inside and painted the shelves the heritage white. Charlie had to supervise. ha ha ha
Once I finished the white, I let it dry and then moved on to the outside. I am painting it the same turquoise as the lamp on the table. I used a roller for most of this. I bought the roller for cabinet painting. It was perfect sized and worked great.
I did a couple of coats on both the white and the turquoise while it was upside down and let it dry completely. Then it was time to flip it over to right side up.
I painted all of the top surfaces, touched up a lot of the sides and then let it all dry. I didn’t paint the inside of the cabinets because they won’t be seen and hey…I’m lazy like that!
The next step was to age and distress it up a little. What I did first was grab my sander with 220 grit sand paper and just randomly started sanding things. I did sand the edges everywhere and then just touched the sander here and there on the flat surfaces. I only did this on the turquoise part. I left the white part alone. Then I rubbed a dark walnut stain over the entire piece (outside only, not the shelves) and then rubbed it mostly off. I ended up with a toned down turquoise, distressed piece. I love it!
I let it all dry over night (actually a couple of nights.) Then I decided to try and use a rub on wax to finish it up. Luckily I thought ahead here and decided to try it on the back of the piece first to see how it would look and if I liked the final look. Thank Goodness for small favors! Turns out the wax did not work at all. It was a total failure. I rubbed it on and all it did was completely remove the stain I had put on. I really don’t know what I did wrong here and I’m still trying to figure it out but needless to say the wax was not going to work. I just left it out. I’m just so glad I tried it on a small part of the back so there is only one small square on the back that is no longer stained.
So, if you happen to know what I did wrong here I’m dying to know. I know I’ve seen lots of projects that have been done exactly like this but apparently I just didn’t do something right.
So, now it was time to finish it up. I got the hardware for it at Hobby Lobby. I liked the look of it even though the white doesn’t really match the white of the shelves. I still think it’s ok.
Now it was time to put things back in the shelves and decorate it a little. I’ll admit this is still a work in progress. I’m not quite happy with everything yet but it’s coming along. Here are my first couple of tries…
OK…so I like the second shelf…sort of. I really don’t like the top or the bottom one and the top is really not right. Back to the drawing board…
OK, this is a little better on the top shelf. Still not feeling it completely though. Oh, you may have noticed it is now missing one of the bottom cabinet pulls. It just didn’t work, so I had to replace it. I waited until they put the knobs on sale at Hobby Lobby again so don’t worry, it is back in place now.
I finally decided that the blue Ball jars just weren’t going to work on the top, so once I took them down, everything else just sort of fell into place. I changed out the flowers in the vase at the top instead of my wedding bouquet I put some of the branches with blooms on them in it. I really like it so much better. So, what do you think? I’m still not feeling the large goblets on the bottom shelf. What do you think? Should I paint that middle one? It’s sort of an old gold which kind of goes with the maroon, gold, turquoise, and white color scheme but it just doesn’t seem to belong. What do you think I should do? Here is the final look (for now anyway). I do love “most” of it, but I’m still on the look out for some other things to put on display. My absolute favorite thing in the entire cabinet is the matching plate, cup, and saucer in the middle of the second shelf. I got those when my husband’s grandmother died. It was our only inheritance from her and I just love it so much. I found out later that there was an entire set and they split it all up and gave one place setting to each grand child. I wish I could just buy everyone’s from them but I bet many of them don’t even have it anymore. Not everyone loves old things as much as I do I think!
So, what do you think? Do you like how it turned out? I welcome any and all feedback, both positive and negative!
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