Before and After linen cabinet

For those of you who can't stand wood furniture being painted - look away now! You've been warned....... ;-)

Got a 14" deep cabinet from Craigslist that had a dark brown stain. This isn't a valuable piece, no dovetailing or important wood. As this is to sit in the hallway, the dark color just didn't work. It's ok as is....but I wanted something more rustic.

So I painted it gray and antiqued it with dark stain. The glass had to go because the door needs to shimmy into place and the glass would keep the door too straight to close. Bummer. I took off the top decorative thingy and have saved it for another project down the road.


I stapled on a thick fabric scrap that I already had. I actually like fabric rather than glass because of the warmth and tone of fabric - and more decorating possibilities.


Then I stood back and lived with this for about a day and decided that it was still too dark for the hallway and besides, the wonderful carved details were lost in that darkness.


So I started adding some blue and cream paint and more stain on top of that......


Ahh, now the details are showing up. See the little balls of cream on blue shells? All nicely carved. The staining helps show the depth.


I added the wooden flower because it seemed to need a little something there. I smoothed out the stain with a little more paint to even out the panels.


What a change in personality! This will give me more linen storage, right outside the hall bathroom, which has a gray and white toile decor. Sorry for the low lighting - I had to stand in the bathroom to get the full picture.




A great spot above to display my small collection of vintage Blue Willow Plates.


And what a nice coincidence that I had a plant container with blue vines, just like the fabric!

This is one of my favorite statuettes - a small boy and his dog is so sweet. Set on vintage books.


Nice gams....


I'm linking up to Between Naps on the Porch's Met Monday. Click on the butterfly to see more "Before and After" posts from creative bloggers: