ANOTHER CHECK OFF THE PROJECTS LIST!

Refitting the inside of the armoire in the living room finally surfaced to the top of our project's list. When we moved into this house a couple of years ago we no longer had a spot for the china cabinet and we had this large indented area that needed to be filled and I was having a problem coming up with the inspiration as to what kind of furniture to place in this niche.

At the same time I also had a bedroom set that would not work in the new house so I found a local consignment shop and made the necessary arrangements to sell the bedroom set. While at the shop I spotted this beautiful media center and realized that it could be re-purposed as a china/linen cabinet. This particular piece is by South Cone and was very expensive when originally sold, is made of solid reclaimed wood and had a higher price than I wanted to pay.  They did however have a sign that read "we encourage you to make an offer." So I made an offer of half of what they were asking and it was mine. Point is these pieces are out there at consignment shops, thrift stores, used furniture places, etc. as they were designed for huge televisions and they can be had at a reasonable price.

 I fully realize that not everyone has a clever husband but the shelves could be cut from MDF at your local lumber/big box store and easily installed (cut the side rails from 1x2) using nails and glue place the side pieces and the shelves. A piece of press-board was used to cover the hole (originally for cords). If using MDF you would paint the wood rather than stain.

This is a view of the cabinet with one of the new shelves just sitting inside - we did graduated shelves so that the items on the shelves would be easily accessible and to lessen the chance of damaging items taking them out of the cabinet.

 The wood was first painted with a wood conditioner, then the gel stain and finally two coats of polyurethane.

The bottom of the cabinet was designed for storage of VHS tapes, etc. and is perfect for linen storage.  The other side of the bottom of the cabinet is just two wide shelves making for great storage for placemats, etc.

Okay, here is the really embarrassing part - seems as though the cabinet had become just another storage place, somewhere to stick things I did not have any other place to store them.

At last organization.  Just the addition of the two graduated shelves has made the cabinet a safe and easy place for my Danish Fern dishes and other items. The lower shelves (great for platters and other large plates) were part of the original cabinet they were for VHS and other players.

Resource

Danish Fern (erthenware) by Burleigh, England - pattern revived by Martha-by-Mail and then other sellers.  Is now only available on auction sites and places like Replacements. Here is a link to more information over at Good Things by David: Link

Stains and finishes, Hardware stores, online and big box stores.

Entertainment cabinets, Consignment, thrift and used furniture stores.

Thank you for stopping by.