Oh my... I've done it again....

Disclaimer: This was totally not my fault.

Here's the story....

A friend of mine invited me to photograph his 1700's house and barns last week. It was great fun rummaging through the barns and through the house. It's a rental property now and is currently empty because of flooding last summer. As a result there was extensive damage to the lower level of the house. Mainly the cellar which had a massive walk-in fireplace. If those walls could talk!

Anyhow....  while exploring the cellar we saw this poor old cupboard up-ended and laying on its side. I suggested he take it home for his wife as it was a sweet old thing. Long story short... he offered it to me as it would only be left there to rot. Well.........  I couldn't possibly let that happen! So, once again, here I am with a new/old cupboard in serious need of help.

Break out the sandpaper!

Poor old  thing... it needed a home

Look at the great crackling!

Ohhh.. and look at that heavy rust!

So here are some picture of the process over the course of 3 days.... 

First a major scrub-down, minor scraping and primer

..didn't want to lose the authentic crackle

 

 

 

Some nice clean white paint

I saw this lovely French advertising graphic on the Graphics Fairy site (Thank you Karen) that needed to be on the front of the door, so I printed it out on 8 sheets of paper and traced it onto the door. This was no easy feat as the wood was very bumpy and crackled.







Here I am painstakingly painting in each and every letter and scroll. (I must be insane)

The #$@! lettering is done!

The hinges are all cleaned and ready to fit

Tons of scraping/sanding/adjusting to get the hinges to fit properly (still insane)

And....



wait for it..............





Tah dah!

I'm really very happy with the results. I sanded the edges and around the handles to give it some age, the door fits beautifully, the drawer slides nicely.. and it's ready to be put in place. (What place?!) Hmmm... that one could take longer than the whole restoration!

Hope you enjoyed the process of yet another rescue.

My name is Canace and I'm addicted to neat old cabinets...

Have a great week!

All best,
Canace