Cabinet Makeover...

My Mother gave me this lovely oak cabinet which originally belonged to my Great Grandmother, so I set about transforming it from 'old and fusty' to 'shabby chic'...

I had been looking for a cabinet for such a long time but found that they were all far too deep, so was delighted when I inherited this little beauty! I decided to give it a good rub back first and see what I thought of the bare oak, although it was actually quite lovely, it was just too dark, so I decided it needed to be painted.

I usually don't need to prime the furniture that I paint, so naively assumed that this would be the same.... *wrong*! I applied 2 coats of white matt emulsion and found that the tannin bleed through was horiffic, so set off to B&Q in search of primer. After what seemed like a lifetime of standing staring at a million different types of primer, I decided to opt for Ronseals Knot Primer, which promised to block all resins... sounded good to me! So, me and said primer set off home.

I applied the first coat of primer, hoping that I would only need one... optimistic to say the least. I ended up applying 5 coats of primer, which was more than a tad tedious when painting the doors!

It took me a week to paint the cabinet due to the fact that I had to work during the day, but needed full daylight to check the tannin bleed through. So on the Sunday morning I popped down to the garden room (aka 'creative space') and was pleased to see that the yellowing was much fainter than before, *hoorah*!!

I added another coat of white emulsion and when dry went over with a cream emulsion and some very pale creamy pink just to soften it. I don't really have a solid painting technique, it's more a case of playing around until I get the texture/shade that I think suits the piece.    

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Once dried, I sanded the whole piece down with a fine paper and then aged some areas with a medium paper. My *FAVOURITE* bit is when it is all painted and ready to be aged and played around with, It's a like a big blank 'shabby chic canvas' :)

Being hugely impatient and desperate to get my new cabinet upstairs, I even roped the boyfriend in on the fine sanding part ( not the 'distressing' part... that's MY bit!). Now it was time to get the doors back on... *oh dear*. Having never worked on anything with doors that need removing, it didn't even cross my mind to list the location of the hinges as they came off (won't make that mistake again). Once I had the doors back on, they wouldn't actually close... *queue very pouty bottom lip from me*

But, never fear... I have a very handy man! He played around with the doors for an hour and managed to improve them somewhat. He then decided than planing was the final option! So, after taking a tiny amount off of one the doors.... They closed *YIPEEEE*.

Now, it was 11pm and most normal people would have just gone to bed... did I mention that I am not considered 'normal' by anyone that I know? I set about finding paper for the back and lovely things to display in my fabulous new cabinet! Luckily I had some cute paper from Paperchase which I used to give the back some colour. I am not 100% happy with the backing, so will probably change it for something softer in colour when I find the *right* paper.

Finally my cabinet was all finished... I stood and admired it for a while before ridding myself of dust and paint and heading off to bed. 

 ♥

There were moment's when I thought "why did I start this"?! I am so glad that I did though because I  love the finished product. I also *LOVE* that I now have far more room in my kitchen after turfing out the glasses for the cabinet!!

     What to paint next.....

Eclectic Heaven x