Cabinet Transformation...Finally!

I have been working on a cabinet revamp for a while now and I am yippy skippy to say it's finally done! I didn't realize how long I had been working on it until I saw the date of the before picture I took...January 2nd! Good grief. Had we not been subjected to 30 billion several snow days and freezing temps, I would have been done much sooner. But I wasn't about to freeze my tail off in the detached garage.  We Alabama girls aren't made for such weather. And in hindsight, I probably should not have tackled such a large piece for my first furniture makeover but it was totally worth it in the end.

So without further adieu...I present my new and improved cabinet!

I think it's stunning :) Now to the nitty gritty. We bought the cabinet on Craigslist for $50. My Hubby and I went and picked it up together of course. Never go alone! This is technically a curio cabinet but I'm using it more as a china cabinet in my dining room. It didn't come with any shelves but my awesome Daddy is cutting some wooden ones for me. Once those are done I will post a picture. 

As you can see in the Before picture above, it was not very pretty but had oodles of potential. First off, I cleaned her up by wiping down with a damp cloth, removed the hardware and sanded it down. I didn't do a ton of sanding, just enough to get the shiny stuff off and give a good surface for the primer. I used Kilz primer because it's what I had on hand. Here it is with a coat of primer.

I wanted to paint the back panel inside the cabinet a dark gray blue color to give it some contrast. I chose a blueish shade to offset the dining room color which is a light blue. And it only cost me about $3. Home Depot sells samples of paint for like $2.97 and that was all it took. But just a warning, the samples only come in a flat finish. It was just fine for what I needed. Sorry about the lighting in this one. It was out in the garage at night and I used the flash, gulp. And those lines are from the doors.

I wanted the same distressing technique from Centsational Girl that I used on the Shelf so the next thing I did was break out the expresso spray paint and coat the edges of the cabinet. Now I KNOW I took a picture of the painted edges but I cannot find it anywhere on my computer. Maybe it's because it looked pretty hideous at the time and it's embarrassed to be shown in such a state. Who knows? But you can check out the shelf pictures and get the idea. I basically sprayed every edge that I wanted to be distressed. I did not tape the windows or anything and a little bit of spray paint got on the glass. I just scraped it off later. Much simpler than taping things up...in my humble opinion. 

The paint I used was Behr's Swiss Coffee in semi-gloss. And I used about 75% of a quart sized can. I worked in sections and painted an area, let it dry for about 30 seconds, and then using a baby wipe, wiped down the edges to expose some of the brown. Now the disheartening part, the first coat of paint did not completely cover the "extra" brown that wasn't to be distressed. So...I had to do the entire process TWICE. Paint and expose. Let it dry and then do it all again. That was definitely the most time consuming part of the whole project. Here's a series of pictures showing the "distressing" process.

Once the second coat completely dried, I broke out the razor blade and started scraping excess paint off of the glass doors. And yes, my razorblade is pink...part of my case of pink tools my sweet Mama gave me :) It's perfect for keeping inside the house to fix small things.

As for the hardware, I bought four knobs at Hobby Lobby for about $3 each. Two of them are vertical for the glass doors and I turned the two at the bottom horizontal. Love them!

Whew...what a whirlwind. I'm so glad it's done. Now I just have to get the shelves primed and painted and it will be good to go. Here are a few more After pictures for ya. 

View from the front door. And a sleepy little doggy squeezed in the picture too. 

I hope you enjoyed this transformation. I love my new cabinet! And I came in right under $100 for the total project. Pretty good for a big ole cabinet :)

Lots to come on my new soon-to-be craft room so stay tuned!

Linking up at these awesome parties!