This is, by far, my best project yet. Granted, this remodel was done in a full garage, with the right tools... rather than on the front lawn of a townhouse apartment with a few hand tools and spray paint. But still! Here's a peek into the process involved.
Materials:
-Curio cabinet: $40 (Goodwill Home Store... highly recommended! Sadly, I believe the only one is currently in Bowling Green, OH, as it's a prototype)
-Behr gloss paint in Antique White (1 gallon): $15
-Behr gloss paint in Watermelon Sorbet (1 quart): $15
-2 sheets medium-density fiberboard: $13
-Deglosser/liquid sandpaper: $6
-Old rags: $0
-Shelf pegs (recycled from an old bookshelf): $0
-Washi tape: $2
-Palm sander/sandpaper: $0
-Power drill with hole saw attachment: $0
-Backsaw: $0
-Paint brushes, roller frames, and roller covers: $0
TOTAL COST: About $100
The first and most important (and also infuriating) step was to figure out how to get the YEARS worth of goopy, waxy polish off of the curio cabinet. It was a lovely dark stain, and someone had certainly taken care to protect it... but I had a hard time appreciating this. I scraped and sanded and scraped, and eventually discovered the glory of a healthy coat (or four, in this case) of liquid sander. Eventually, I got through the yuck, gave it a quick once-over with a sanding sponge, and went to work.
I removed the doors and all of the hardware on the front of the cabinet:
The stinky twinkies helped by adding some colorful accent pieces.
Then I went to work painting. I started with the outside, to see how well the white would take to the dark stain. It took about three coats before it was fully covered, but I added a light fourth coat for good measure (I might have a tendency to over-do things sometimes, but it worked in this case):
The coffee cup left a slight stain, and I was delighted to see it
wipe right off with a little Windex. Yay for gloss paint!
The fiberboard was the cheaper option for shelves (over solid wood), and wasn't too bad to work with. I measured about forty times, marked my lines, and then started cutting with a hacksaw. I quickly discovered that this was a bad idea:
It probably didn't help that I don't own real sawhorses or a workbench.
I used a junk door on a set of plastic sawhorses.
The top of the hacksaw got stuck as I tried to cut long-ways. So I switched to a
back saw, which is titled as such due to the fact that the cutting is done primarily on the back stroke. It was much easier! I lightly sanded the edges of the fiberboard to smooth them out, and then painted them the same color that I was painting the interior of the cabinet: Watermelon Sorbet!
The painting part is pretty straightforward, even if you're not familiar with painting. Cut in the edges and tight spaces with a brush, bringing the strokes outward toward the middle. You should cut in at least two coats, and then you can roll the rest (2-3 coats, depending on the color underneath. I used three!).
For the shelves, I re-used old pegs from a bookshelf that fell apart. I matched the diameter of the pegs to a drill bit, and then took strips of painter's tape and measured/marked the holes (I did three rows of holes for adjustable shelves on the left side; the right side already had holes for a large, single shelf). I stuck the tape where I wanted it and measured and leveled, then drilled straight through the tape. The holes were perfectly placed and level, and I just re-used the tape every time I drilled!
At the very end, I lined the fronts of the shelves with pretty, coordinating Washi tape to hide the ugly fiberboard edges. I sanded a bit to distress the edges, cut holes for cords in the back with a hole saw attachment (similar to
this one; it attaches to a drill so you can cut a clean hole), and voila:
We built the free-standing shelf on the bottom right to keep the stereo receiver elevated
so it didn't overheat and destroy the Blu-Ray player ;)
I'm thrilled with the way it turned out, but the ONLY thing I regret (and learned from) was the extra step I took to protect it: two coats of polyurethane in a spray can. If you use this stuff, ever, MAKE SURE you get the non-yellowing kind. This same piece now has some weird yellow stains on it from the polyurethane, and I'll probably have to re-paint it to get rid of it.
Other than that, it was a super-fun, educational project that taught me how to do a lot of things!
