new cabinet doors

For those of you who haven't been here before, I moved back into this house about a year and a half ago, after renting it out for seven years. I'm slowly decorating the whole house, but my latest project involves adding doors to this cabinet.

 

I originally wanted a china cabinet with glazed upper doors, so my partner built this unit, and added a wooden detail to the top that he found on a job somewhere. Then he got a computer and made an extra shelf in the bottom section for paper, and even made one section of wood removable, so that he could slide the screen and keyboard behind the non existent doors.

I didn't mind the compromise because there was nowhere else to put his computer, but the doors never materialised.......

and then we both moved out, separately !

 

After being inspired to turn the cabinet into a craft cupboard by Carol (instead of just using it to house junk) which you can read about here, I was intent on finishing this built in unit.

 

I went to a wood yard and had four pieces of mdf cut, two with cut outs for the upper doors.

 

 

I bought some trim to make a central panel on the bottom doors and to frame the opening on the upper doors, which would also disguise the edges of the chicken wire.

I don't have a special place to work or any special tools, I just used a saw and a mitre block and my dining room table.

I pinned on all the trim in a couple of hours, then tackled the hinges.
I laid out the doors back to back and marked and measured all the hinges, and after another couple of hours, I went from this,

 

to this,

and then this,

Then I took off the crosses (because I wasn't going for barn door, I was going for European), and put on trims in a diamond shape, and a trim on the edge of one of each set of doors to cover the central gap, added magnetic catches inside and painted the doors dark brown.

I rubbed the edge of a candle on the trims to resist the paint and then coated the doors in two layers of white, and distressed and finished with AS wax .

I trawled the internet for hours looking for handles, and finally found what I wanted, and I really love them.

All that was a breeze compared to fixing the chicken wire and finding some fabric.

I can't quite believe that I had managed to hang the doors straight, with almost no adjustments, but it took three or four attempts and lots of scratches to get the chicken wire right.

And the fabric, oh my ................... I had always imagined tightly gathered white or off white muslin, but it looked awful because it was too bedroomy.
My second choice wasn't much better.
I went to every fabric shop in town and all the charity shops. I even tried old lace tablecloths but nothing looked good, so I went back to the internet and looked at prints and sent off for loads of samples.

I really like the two green fabrics at the top on the right, but I wanted something a little different, so I went with this.....

Yay for map fabric, I love it.

 

The colours are perfect for the dining room. It has lots of blues, reds and browns. Some of the pictures have a slight green tinge, but the picture below shows the true colours of this great fabric.

 

Also, I originally found it on the Next website for £15 a metre, then found the exact same fabric on another site for £8.99 a metre, so that was a real result.

 

My dining room almost looks like a proper room now.

 

 

From empty.... to wasted storage space.... to useful art cupboard.... to dining room shabby chic/useful art cupboard......

and it only took 10 years !!

 

 

I'm pretty happy and as Vickie has pointed out to me, I can always change the fabric if I go off it, but I don't think that will be any time soon. 

 

 

I hope you've all enjoyed your 4th July celebrations, of course we don't celebrate this day in the UK, but most people are celebrating the great weather we're having here.

It's hardly rained at all in the last few weeks, which is very unusual, my garden and I both like a little bit of rain !

 

Linking up with

Make it pretty Monday @ The Dedicated House

Inspire Me Tuesday @ A Stroll Thru Life

The Scoop @ Cedar Hill Farmhouse

Wow Us Wednesdays @ Savvy Southern Style

Show and Tell Friday @ My Romantic Home

Feathered Nest Friday @ French Country Cottage

Silver Pennies Sundays Link Party @ Silver Pennies