Drab to Fab: Refinishing an Antique Cabinet

"Look at that cabinet!"

Driving down the highway with my mom, we happened to pass a random antique shop on the side of the road. And sitting outside, on the front stoop, was a beauty. An old, white, kitchen-cabinet-hutch-type-thingy. It had glass doors on top, and cupboards on the bottom; and I loved it.

After my exclamation, my mom (God love her) pulled a u-turn. Before I knew it, she had bartered the guy down to right around $100 (down from $175!) and I was calling the Mister to bring the pickup truck over and load this bad boy up.

And thus began my first refinishing project.

Here's what it looked like sitting in my garage, taken apart into two pieces for easier transportation:

The bottom half, complete with peeling paint and duct tape.



The top half, with red paint inside and dirty red and white fabric lining the shelves.

 The fabric was the first thing to go, because it was N-A-S-T-Y. Then, I started sanding it down, but that wasn't doing enough to take off the old white paint. I didn't want to just paint over, because it was dingy and brown, and peeling at the bottom. (It looked like it had been in a place that flooded, because the bottom of the bottom half was a mess). 

So, I went to Plan B. I bought some low-VOC Citrustrip spray, and put that on there. It took about two cans of the spray to get the entire thing covered, and the old white paint came right off with a paint scraper. After that, I used stripping pads to get the leftover stripping gunk off, and then I wiped down everything with a rag soaked in Odorless Mineral Spirits to clean up. 

Before priming, I went over the entire thing again with my trusty hand-sander, using 220 grit paper. 

I was able to take the bottom doors off, as well as the hardware. I spraypainted the handles with a brushed nickel spray paint in a satin finish, and they looked good as new. Unfortunately, the top doors were stuck on there because the hardware had been painted over a couple of times already. So, I spray-painted the handles and left the mounting hardware as it was.

Three coats of Kilz Primer (I used the spray paint version on that back piece to cover the red) and three coats of leftover BM White dove later:

 Its new home in the family room

I wanted to cover the red on the inside, because it didn't really go with any of my colors in the house. I wasn't sure what color I wanted the inside to be, so I left it white until I was sure. Now, it's kind of grown on me. Although, I could wallpaper the back with a fun design...

The metal tray that sticks out still had the red color on the edging, but it didn't bother me because it's not as noticable. Besides, the tray is the perfect size to showcase our wedding album, and it just so happens our colors were black, white and an accent of red. Love it.

Now we just need to fill it up with fabulous things to showcase those beautiful glass doors...