I inherited a special piece of furniture from my grandmother decades ago. It was a simple china cabinet that once graced her kitchen in small-town New Jersey in the late 1940's. At one point it was a focal point of her kitchen — housing all of her plates, saucers, bowls and coffee mugs. I always loved its simplicity and small size. It was a very blue-collar/utility piece and it held pieces of my own kitchen for many years.
While my wife and kids were away on vacation, I decided it was time to give it new life, while respecting its age and era. I wanted to refinish it, sure up its bones, and to add a rustic touch with some distressing.
Here is what 2 solid weeks of sweat equity can result in.
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| The original china cabinet after removing the top glass doors, the drawer and the bottom doors. In general, it was solid, but needed a new back, a new drawer runner, new hinges, new knobs/pulls. |
The longest part of the project included painting on multiple coats of paint stripper. This took a tremendous amount of patience and was a messy process, but after each coat of paint removed, it revealed more and more of the original piece. The fumes of the stripper weren't as bad as I'd thought, but I still kept the garage door open for the 95 degree "fresh" air to keep me from passing out.
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| First coat of stripper doing its job. They key is patience here. Paint the stripper on and leave it to dissolve as much as it can, before scraping it off with a putty knife. |
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| A photo of the front frame after the second coat of stripper. Still peeling off plenty of paint here. |
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| Finally seeing a little bit of wood under all those coats of paint. |
During the stripping process, I started to notice that the piece had once been robin's egg blue. After asking my grandmother about its history she did remember it being a light blue at one point.
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| Some of the blue paint starting to come off during scraping. |
Next it was on to the doors. Thankfully the glass on both doors was intact after all these years. It was a bit tricky scraping the paint from the glass trim detail. I just took my time, so as not to damage the molding or crack the glass.
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| One of the top glass doors getting stripped. |
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| A few layers of paint to go. See that blue color of the original? |
Next step was to strip the layers of paint off of the shelves. Both top and bottom of each shelf was stripped. This was also the point where I went and bought some beadboard to make a new back to replace the old one.
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| The shelves took a long time to strip given the stubborn paint they held on to. Also noticed what I think were details of a flowered vase painted or stuck to the bottom doors. |
After most of the paint layers were stripped and sanded off, it was time to patch some old dents, dings and gouges.
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| With much of the paint removed, it was time to detail sand and patch. |
On to the drawers and doors. They were in pretty rough shape and needed some patching and sanding love.
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| The two bottom drawers. The faces were made out of fiber board, which is really tricky to sand, so patching was a must. I also decided to fill in the old handle/pull holes so that I could reposition and install new pulls. |
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| All of the original glue had broken off of the drawer joints and the drawer bottom was too far gone to repair, so I took some scrap fiber board and made a new drawer bottom as well as removed all of the old glue and reset, squared, glued and clamped the drawer back together. |
Once it was cleaned off and sanded, I test fitted the new beadboard back.
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| New beadboard back fitting nicely. |
With the new back secured, I moved on to test fitting all of the doors and drawer and laid out where I wanted the new hardware to go. Still in rough shape, but very close to being ready for primer.
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| Test fitting the new hardware. I was looking for practicality and symmetry. |
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| You can see in the photo from where the patches are that the cabinet once had small knobs (most likely made of wood) and later someone (probably granddad) added handle pulls. |
After the geneal assembly, it was still lacking something in stature. The top, I felt, needed something to give it a presence. I decided that I would make an oversized top out of oak and crown molding. I hadn't worked with crown molding before and wanted to learn something new. It was just the touch it needed.
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| New crown molding and solid oak top. Ready for final sanding and primer. |
After all the messy parts of the project were out of the way (approximately 10 days worth of work) I brought the pieces inside to paint. I started with the interior (back and shelves), which I decided were going to be painted with General Finishes Milk Paint (Antique White).
A few coats of the interior parts later, I was ready to start on the outside. Now, my ultimate goal was to give this piece an antique/distressed look. I started with a base coat of flat black so that after sanding the final coats of paint, it would reveal and offer a nice repainted rustic look.
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| Exterior panels, frames and top painted with two coats of flat black. |
On to the most exciting part... the final color.
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| Flat black color covered over with General Finishes Milk Paint (Persian Blue). I put on two coats so that I had a bit more control over the distressing process. |
Now on to the scary and rewarding part of the process. Taking off bits and pieces of all of the hard work I had just accomplished over the previous few days.
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| After all drying was complete, I used a combination of steel wool and sand paper of different grits to scuff some edges to create the look of wear and tear. |
This was my first time distressing a piece of furniture on purpose. I learned that less is more. If I did it again, I may have done a bit less, but it still turned out great,
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| Almost done. Almost to the finish line. |
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| A closer view of some of the distressing. See how that black comes through and creates a contrast with the blue? |
And the very final-final step was to apply a paste wax to all of the surfaces to give it a slight sheen and to protect the piece from moisture and finger prints.
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| Finished within an hour of the family coming home from a two week vacation. |
Overall, I'm really happy with how this project turned out. I learned a lot throughout the process and also realized how long even a "simple" project can take. Two full weeks. Might have been easier and quicker to build a new one, but this heirloom piece is special to my family and I and will no doubt be a conversation piece for generations to come.
