Tag: our house

ANTIQUE CABINET RESTORATION

In this post, I describe the steps we took during our antique cabinet restoration – taking a beat up old cabinet and making it look new again!

antique cabinet restoration

 

Last winter, I happened to be driving through a nearby town and noticed an antique store I had never been in. I decided to stop and have a look around.

It was packed with all sorts of treasures, which made it a bit hard to see individual items. I get a little claustrophobic when I am surrounded by things. And so, if i’m honest being honest, I was walking through the shop quickly. Just as I was getting ready to head out, I spotted a pair of antique cabinets in the corner.

They were so wedged in that it was hard for me to determine their condition. I asked the store owner to pull them out a bit so that I could take a look. She did the best she could. However, it was impossible to see all sides of the cabinets without rearranging a ton of items.

She told me about the cabinets history, mentioning they had been salvaged from an old house during a recent remodel. The notches on their sides indicate where they had been built into walls. She also informed me that she would only sell the cabinets as a pair. And that the one in back wasn’t in great shape.

 

THE CABINETS

Undeterred, I texted Craig this photo and asked for his consent to purchase. This is the cabinet that was more visible. I loved the glass door, and the size of the cabinet seemed to be good for a variety of purposes

vintage cabinet in an antique store

 

Though he was skeptical on what we would do with them, he has known me long enough to realize that once I fall for an item, it is pretty hard to shake it from my mind. He agreed that the cabinets could become ours. A couple of weeks later, he went to retrieve them.

Upon arriving home, Craig announced that the second cabinet was basically falling apart, and that it probably wasn’t worth salvaging.

The ‘nice’ cabinet was given a spot in our rental home. The ‘ugly duckling’ cabinet was left in the garage.

vintage cabinet with glass door

the nicer cabinet,  in our dining room

 



 

THOUGHTS OF RESTORATION

Sitting in the garage, the cabinet was something we saw every day. Perhaps Craig became annoyed seeing an unfinished project, or perhaps he began to see it’s merit. Either way, he eventually decided to take it on as his personal restoration project.

I was all for it! If he was going to do the work, I certainly wasn’t going to get in his way!

antique cabinet with many scratches and dings

 

Unfortunately, I didn’t take many good pictures before he started the antique cabinet restoration. I can tell you though, it was in really rough shape. The door was barely hanging on by it’s hinges, the glass was broken, and some of the wooden grilles were missing. There was a large crack on the top, and a broken piece on the side.

 

ANTIQUE CABINET RESTORATION

Craig spent many long hours in the garage sanding, gluing, and sanding some more.

antique cabinet restoration steps

making old new again. steps to restoring an antique cabinet

repairing an antique cabinet

There sure was a lot of sanding and gluing to be done! He mostly used an orbital sander with varying grits of paper. For the finest details, he used a sanding block.

 

broken piece on an antique cabinet

sanding the corners of an antique cabinet so that it can be restored

 

Craig took pieces of the cabinet apart…

antique cabinet pieces to be repaired

 

… then put them back together

sanding an antique cabinet

 



REFINISHING THE ANTIQUE CABINET

After literal months of very hard work, the cabinet was once again standing tall and ready for it’s finishing. Once the sanding was complete, it was much easier to see all of the beautiful wood grain details.

 

repairing an old cabinet during an antique cabinet restoration

The lighter wood pieces are replacements. Although they are the same wood species, they are not aged in the way that the rest of the cabinet pieces are.

 

how to restore an antique cabinet

 

CHOOSING THE STAIN COLOR

It was a difficult decision on what type and color of stain to use. The cabinet is made of 100% red oak – but some of it has a tighter grain, while other parts a more loose and wavy grain.

We had some samples made up at a local Sherwin Williams, then brought them back to the house to look at for a while.

stain color options for an antique cabinet

 

Ultimately, we agreed upon a Minwax stain called ‘Dark Walnut’. We felt that it gave us a nice deep color, which would help to neutralize the grain a bit. The Sherwin Williams associate suggested a Minwax water based urethane in a semi-gloss finish. Popular Woodworking has a great post about how to properly apply stain.

finish for an antique cabinet

 

The cabinet absolutely soaked up the stain. The wood looked amazing, but wasn’t quite as dark as I had wanted after the first coating.

Antique cabinet restoration. Applying stain to an antique cabinet

 

front and back of the restored antique cabinet after one coat of stain

Cabinet after one coat of stain (sitting in the garage)

As you can see in the photos above, the newer wood pieces were still pretty obvious after the first coat. We waited a couple of days, and then applied another stain coating. This time we had success with the color. We brought it indoors to dry for another two days, and then added two coats of the clear semi-gloss finish. The spar urethane really made the cabinet shine, and darkened the color a bit more.

antique cabinet restored. Amazing old cabinet with storage and mail sorting

Finished cabinet with lower door open

 

vintage cabinet with mail cubbies - antique cabinet restoration

Detail of cubbies. Might be perfect for sorting mail!

 

vintage cabinet detail - antique cabinet restoration

Detail of the molding and repaired cabinet top

 

antique built in cabinet with writing showcasing their original location

The original writing on the side of the cabinet – which indicates the part number, and the early 1900’s homeowner. 

 

restored antique cabinet with new stain and urethane

 

FUTURE FOR THE ANTIQUE CABINETS

Now that the antique cabinet restoration is complete, we are dreaming about it’s future. We love that this historic piece will be given a prominent spot in Arrow Hill Cottage – to define our entryway from the living room! You can read more about our first floor layout in THIS POST.

antique cabinet restoration - pair of cabinets restored and ready for their spot in a new house

 

We are also very excited to see how the ‘nicer’ cabinet turns out. And to see BOTH of the cabinets, together once again in the new house, will be such a thrill!

 

PIN THIS ANTIQUE CABINET RESTORATION

If you enjoyed seeing this old cabinet become new again, be sure to follow this blog to see the other restored!

antique cabinet restoration - steps to move from trash to treasure

 

SATURDAY SKETCHBOOK: PLANNING AND REVISING

This winter has been brutal. Think freezing or below for months at a time. No, I’m not exaggerating – anyone who lives in the Midwest will agree.

As I have mentioned before, our family currently lives in a rental house. As part of our agreement, we pay our own utilities – which includes the propane used to heat the house. Let’s just say the propane guy has been out here multiple times already this season, and gas isn’t cheap! The house just doesn’t heat well. It’s an older home and has leaks and cracks and windows that aren’t perfectly sealed.

This winter has been breaking us down.

One day at the dinner table Craig asked me “Is there ANY way that we can build our house sooner? I am not sure I can make it through another winter like this in the rental.” My honest answer was that I really did not know. I hadn’t let my mind go there.

But I agreed to check into it, and found myself at the bank the following week – sitting down with a loan officer who very kindly told me that our finances looked good but that she needed to have some clear estimates of how much this house would cost us to build. Gulp. Time for the dreaded bottom line.

I wrote about making sure you know what you can afford in THIS recent post. Craig and I are frugal people and no matter what a bank would tell us that we CAN spend, we would never put ourselves in a position where we had a monthly payment that was too difficult for us to meet. We had our best guess dollar figure about what we could handle/month on a loan, but had not yet determined full building costs – besides a general cost per square foot number.

We called up a contractor friend who met with us and talked us through various material decisions. He let us know industry standards and which finishes he thought weren’t worth their price tags. All very good information. Then he started throwing out numbers of recent newly built houses, similar in square footage to what we had designed, and the price tags they had attached to them. GULP again. Wow. Did he really just say that? His cost per square foot numbers were quite a bit higher than those I had been working with.

Of course, there is a range – but in all honesty even the lowest priced was slightly above our comfort level.

main level of the cottage (as designed when talking to the contractor)

Finishes will play a major role in the overall cost, and so in the next couple of weeks we are going to sit down with him once again and talk through actual numbers as they relate to our project. I am already guarding my heart – and I am pretty sure that the bottom line will require some major changes to be made. I’ll be honest that I was pretty bummed for a day or two after our meeting.

The good news is that we are heeding our own advice and finding out these costs early. We aren’t just hoping that everything will come in within our magical budget number.

And, it’s also good that I love to design. I’ve already gone back into the ‘archives’ of plans to see how different ideas could be incorporated. One of the first areas we noticed that could be revised was the large vaulted living room. The elimination of that wing of the house would essentially remove 640 square feet (320sf per level: main and lower). Based on what the contractor was telling us, in ‘real world dollars’ that may be a $100,000 decision. For our family that is a MAJOR amount of money.

I went looking for how that wing could be eliminated and eventually realized that by simply eliminating the kitchen island and moving the table into the kitchen in it’s place, a large area could be opened up and re-imagined into a living room. Interestingly, the positioning of the dining table in the kitchen is a building design trend that makes sense for a lot of families.

image source

 

Though this revised living room isn’t as large as the initial design and doesn’t come with all the bells and whistles I had been dreaming of, it’s okay. It has the potential to be a lovely space, maybe even with a small vault space and extra windows in the bump out area.

main level of the cottage – simplified and reduced square footage

 

The other major bonus is that nothing else on the main level would have to change much, so from the exterior the house looks essentially the same, minus the extra wing.

potential revised exterior without living room wing

 

These are all still ideas, and until we get actual bids on construction materials for our home we won’t know if this major cut will need to be made. But we are preparing for the potential, and know that whatever we end up with will be the perfect fit for our family – in size and style – while at the same time making sense for our pocketbook.