Makeover: China Cabinet

I’m posting this because I want to link up to Metamorphosis Monday over at Between Naps on the Porch and Make Your Monday at Twice Remembered.
When my husband and I were still in college, one of his co-workers got remarried and offered us some of her furniture. We scored several freebies, and this is one them.
When we got it, it looked like this:

complete with a burn hole in the top.
I had it in my apartment for a year, storing books. (And I heard that it was a real PITA to carry up the stairs to my unit.)
And when we finally got married and bought our teeny tiny house, we put it in the dining room.

But after several months, I knew we needed it for storage, and the transformation began.
I’m sorry I didn’t take pictures of the whole process. Basically, I sanded it with steel wool, then primed and painted it white. I wanted to add some interest to the doors, so I added these fabric panels. Bart helped with that project. We screwed cup holders to the top and bottom of each door, and cut dowels to fit. I made the panels (didn’t finish the seems or anything) and VOILA! My panels were made from a light weight “decorator’s” fabric and they were 1 1/2 times the width of the windows.

But the white felt really stark to me, so a few months later, I distressed the edges using my palm sander, and then coated the entire thing with Valspar glaze. I wiped the glaze on with an old sock, then used a spray bottle of water and more old socks to wipe it off until it looked perfectly shabby.
Finally, I put three coats of water based poly on it. I found that the glaze moved a bit with the poly because they were both water based, but because the glaze comes off with water (even after letting it cure a bit) I felt that it needed a topcoat.
I don’t think anyone will confuse it for an expensive piece of furniture, but I think it looks pretty good (especially since it was FREE!)

Here it is in our little Ames house.

And at Christmas time in our “new” house. (Ignore the cabinets next to it. They belong in the new bathroom someday.)

I’ve made several other “curtains” for it, including an adorable black and white toile set, but these are made from cardboard and wrapping paper! I love that this piece is so versatile and easy to change!

Hope you enjoyed my transformation! Check out others at Between Naps on the Porch and Make Your Monday at Twice Remembered!