Painted China Cabinet

This is a project that I have wanted to do for almost 10 years but never had the nerve to do it. So there it sat, in all its orange glory. But since we renovated the kitchen it is now exposed to the family room and every time I sat on the coach it stuck out like a big orange blob.

Last Sunday I decided ... enough's enough ... I'm painting this baby. So, in my usual haste, I started taking off all the hardware before I remembered to take a before shot. This picture was taken when we were packing up for the kitchen reno, thus the chairs stacked up in front of it.

I wanted to paint it a darker grey, but the husband, who stated that he "didn't care what I did to it" all of a sudden got opinionated about the colour. I started with CIL Surreal Blue, went down a shade to Silver Trophy, but he finally won with the even lighter shade of Fine Silver. I do like it, but would have liked it to be just a tad darker. I'm toying with some kind of glaze over top to give it some oomph. Lindsay at Better After used a cool product today that I may try to track down.

I started with a primer coat, followed by two coats of paint, then one coat of varathane. I should have probably done another coat of varathane, but I was getting lazy!

There are lots of imperfections but that's okay. I'm just so happy to get rid of the orange. I kept the top in the original finish because a) it matches our dining room table and b) it was much easier to cover it then have to move the top and c) I knew I'd never get a nice even coat on it like it has now.

As you can see, I took off the doors. I was thinking about doing that and when the husband saw me taking the doors off to paint them he commented that it looked nice like that. Sold! Then I mentioned that it was really nice that their was already beadboard on the back. He looked at me like I was a bit loopy ... oh, he said, you mean the PANELLING. I then gave him the stink eye and told him, no, the BEADBOARD. (full disclosure, technically it IS panelling, but I wasn't giving that to him).

Without the doors I've been able to add my pride and joy ... my Keiller Dundee marmalade crocks. They look much better here than they did in behind glass in the kitchen.


Linking to Funky Junk Interiors' Saturday Nite Special.


Edited to link to Life in the Fun Lane's first Fresh Coat Friday.

I lived with these for 10 years

10 years, yes, 10 long years I lived with these freakingly ugly light fixtures. When we bought our circa 1970 house all the original swedish ball lamps were still in place, expect in the kitchen where these beauties had been installed. Look at their lovely faux finish - would that be verdigris? We did take them out of the kitchen, but for some reason (I think we ran out of money) we reused them in the back hallway and laundry room. So for 10 years I've put up with these. But since renovating the kitchen I've found that my tolerance for ugly in my house has gone down. Finally, last weekend we picked out these new fixtures. ♥♥♥.

Unfortunately, they only had one in stock so I'm still living with my faux finished beauty in the laundry room. Please lighting store, please call and put me out of my faux finish misery.

First Foray into Refinishing

This week Donna at Funky Junk Interiors has a surprise category for her Saturday Nite Special linky party - Dressers, Dressers, Dressers.  I knew my little dresser just had to come out to play for this one.



This dresser was the first piece of furniture I ever refinished so she holds a special place in my heart. I was newly married and my mother-in-law passed this over to me. I wish I had a before shot but, unfortunately, we are talking 20 years ago and I never thought to take pictures of it or the refinishing process. Too bad, we could have had a laugh at the permed hair I was sure to be sporting at the time!

It had been well-used and painted over numerous times. The top coat was white, then red, then another coat of white, then I think there was a dark stain. There might have been another coat in there too.

So out came the Citra-strip (great stuff - works well, smells great and it's non-toxic). I have no idea how long it took me but I know I used most of the bottle of remover and lots of steel wool. I do hope I wore a mask because I'm sure some of that paint had lead in it!

If I remember correctly, I used tung oil for the finish. It's a bit more orangey than I would like it to be, but the wood is so beautiful that I've left it alone.

The original pulls were red plastic vintage 1980's beauties. Since I didn't want the holes to show, and at the time I couldn't find the odd size, I ended up using these. I am not a gold person so someday I may change up this hardware.

She is stuck in a corner at the moment (and very hard to photograph where she sits) because we are in the process of rearranging the living room but cant do anything until we get rid of our monstrous piano.  So please ignore the cords beside her and the plant that kept getting in the way.  And yes, that is part of our record collection off to the right.


Now go check out all the amazing projects at Funky Junk Interiors, my favourite linky party of the week.