A china cabinet and its better days...

Everything has been done to this cabinet.  Its been repaired, 

cleaned, painted, stenciled, lightly sanded, waxed, 

and now is for sale. 

This poor thing has finally seen a better day.  She spent some time in a gravel garage, I believe.  Her poor drawer was separated from her, as were her shelves.  I'm so fortunate to have all the 

pieces intact!  

Before, but with fixed shelves 

If you notice in the above picture, her bottom left cross beam is snapped out of the leg.  

If I snap that back into place, the drawer does not slide in.  There is just enough warp <from the garage life> to make her poor long drawer have problems doing its job.  

I removed the beam.  It was either remove the beam, or the drawer.  This was not a balanced beam, a lady must have her drawers ; )

She still has plenty of strength and I've seen many others with their beam removed too.  Its kinda like a wisdom tooth.  

Here you can see the edges of the boards are just rotted away.  These shelves are 14 inches deep.  I couldn't afford new boards and needed a cheap, easy, stable repair...  

Shelves that will not meet the little thingy to hold it up

Walking around the garage, and work shop, I remember a mirror that came with a buffet I bought a month or so ago.  It has that channel on it to attach to the back of this buffet <if you wanted to use it as a bedroom dresser....another story>

I only need to cut it to size and slip it around the peg.  BINGO! 

Broken shelf idea 

Fixed shelves

SHELVES!

Shelves!

First coat of chalk paint.  Its a soft green, and will have a worn brownish wash added later.  

Cleans up well 

Usually I like leaving spindles speak for themselves.  Only painting parts to highlight the curves.  Until it is waxed, I never know for sure how these legs will come out.  

So much better already 

Let the stencil begin!

Her nest is hidden inside, see it?

Stenciled drawer side

What do you see here?

Now for the brown wash.  I dunno if this soft green color has grown on me, but I do not like the brown wash.  

Right now, its at a standstill.  

This color reminds me of a dirty ashtray left in the rain, water.

I have had to do worse then repaint one panel.  Always a good way to look at things, eh?    

Brown-washed on right panel

Fixed!!  

<sigh of relief> 

Now for a re-stencil job.

The left spindle is unwaxed, the right one waxed.  
Waxing a piece gives it such glow.  

If you look close you can see small details like the line along the side support and the tiny fleurdisomething.

Here she is again.  Once you see that, its hard to unsee it.  So hard actually that I put the scroll work upside down, on the door for the finished project.  Keep scrolling. 

Looooooove the stencil detail along the side of the drawer.

Doily stencil work

Finished!  Whew! 

These next pictures are just playing around with lighting.  Amazing how different the cabinet looks with the light in a different place, or even natural sunlight as the last 

two pictures are. 

This item took about 12 hours to repair, paint and wax.  

It'll be for sale at Treasure's Galore Consignment Shop some time this week.  Thanks for reading!

-Kathy