"...a new cabinet for the dining room.

I've been wanting to get something new to replace the old microwave cart for a while. The gentleman who made our table and chair set and the medicine cabinet that we bought at the Yellow Daisy Festival also sold a lovely little china cabinet, half the size of the one we have, that would have been perfect. But he hasn't shown up at the show since 2002. I've looked online since then, trying to find something comparable. The closest idea I had was to buy a Leksvik buffet from Ikea and then mount shelves on the wall—in fact, James and I were talking about this last week at the Container Store—but I didn't want to mar the walls.

This isn't my ideal cabinet. It's plain boards dry brushed with white so it looks "distressed." [I believe the effect is called "pickled."] I'm not fond of the look. But it is nice and sturdy, and has three shelves on top and an enclosed cupboard on the bottom. With some autumnal trim it ought to look fine. Our decorating is nothing but eclectic anyway. :-)"

What with going away on vacation, the cabinet has been in the garage since October 14. After we got done today buying a paper and going to Lowes and CVS, it was time to remedy the situation.

James is taking over the old microwave cart that was in the spare bedroom holding the television and DVD player. It's headed down to his hobby room to hold a paint rack. I emptied it, cleaned it, vacuumed out the space, and he dispatched it.

I then emptied out the larger microwave cart in the dining room. It holds my bird reference books, Mom's stand mixer since there's no room for it in the kitchen, seasonal decorations, a candle lamp, a container of dip mixes and another of cocoa, our collection of drinking mugs, our plate holders for parties, the seasonal paper napkins, and the stoneware dish collection my mom put together for me when I was a teenager, so this took a while (this included the vacuuming afterwards). I polished it up, then set it up in the spare room as a television holder. There's now room to put the antenna on top, and I "put up" my first Christmas decorations: the Hallmark "Mrs. Claus' cabinet" and the cute little tree I bought in Hobby Lobby last night, a bottle brush tree with glittered tips, a few red beads glued on, a tarnished star at top, all sitting on top of a wooden spool with green yarn around it. (They were too cute to put away.)

(Click on picture to enlarge.)


Next James had to bring the two halves of the new cabinet upstairs. I polished and cleaned the bottom cabinet and we put it into place. It's actually no wider than the old unit. Now came the hard part. Not putting the top on the bottom, attaching cup hooks to it! I wanted cup hooks on the underside of the top shelf to hang up our mugs. Even after tapping out a pilot hole with a nail and tapping the cup hooks in minimally with a hammer, at least one of the hooks resisted going in the hole. James even got down and tried it. He finally got the hole large enough that I could turn the hook and finally get it in. We got nine cup hooks in which will hold all our mugs, including the two new ones James got in Virginia.

Finally that was finished and I was able to polish up the top part and James used the drill to fasten the two parts together.

Lastly I "restocked" it. The cow artwork on the top doesn't quite work, but I don't have anywhere else to put it.

I bought the two wooden red apples at the Apple Festival as well. Since the cabinet looks so much like a display case that might be in a country or vintage store, I applied some decals I had to either side, as well as the three apples that are on the door. They say "apples for sale," "apple country," etc.

Still don't like the pickling. But it does look, to quote Addie Mills, "nifty."



(Click on picture to enlarge.)

Labels: decorating, furniture

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. . . . . Linda at 8:14:00 PM

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