American Girl Doll Cabinet Makeover

When this vintage/antique cabinet that had been redone with a 1980s stenciled creation showed up for me to rescue, I fell in love with it immediately.  It was long overdue for a new overhaul and new purpose.  Upon removing the paint from the top, I quickly realized that the wood was not uniform around the cabinet and it would need be kept a painted piece rather than stained.  Having grown up with a dislike for dolls, and now being a mother of only boys, I laughed at the original suggestion of a doll cabinet from my neighbor.  However, this American Girl craze had me thinking.  Not only was thinking, "Thank God I have boys!" but that this would be the perfect height for a little girl's doll collection. 

So I primed and painted over the stencils.  Painted the whole cabinet white.  Then I traced out a plain star so not to fully copy the American Girl logo.  The rest was easy with filling in the star, putting a coat of seal for the paint and shining up the brass drawer pulls.  Did I mention the real brass pulls?  Under the years of tarnish were shiny brass pulls!  This is why I love working with other people's castaways.  They often don't know what they've thrown away. 

It didn't take much except some paint, fine motor skills, and elbow grease.  However, hopefully this Christmas a little girl will be surprised with a new cabinet for her American Girl Doll collection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

End Table Checkerboard Fail and Redo

I had seen this great pin on Pinterest from Minwax about how you can stain a checkerboard right into the top of a table.  I was up for the challenge and purchased my $5 yard sale table to being the project.  However, when I sanded down the stain off the top, I found the wood to be a knotty pine that would never in a million years cooperate with a checker pattern.  With my luck the dark knots would end up right where the light squares should be.  So I moved on to plan B.

I had already purchased the Minwax Polyshades in Pecan for the first round of the checkerboard so I stained the top and drawer in this shade.  Three coats later, I liked the color and moved on to the legs.  The dark knots needed to be paired with a dark charcoal bottom.  The contrast is more than I would normally choose, but I liked the outcome.  I swapped out the dainty white knobs for small black ones and a new end table is born (without checkers).