Cabinet Reveal!

Ok, Im on a roll with the reveals right now-lol.
Ive been dying to finally post these pictures for a while now, so please bear with me, as many reveal posts are still to come.

Ive mentioned many times about searching through kijiji for great finds. Well recently I haven't seen much, however, when we first started looking on kijiji for furniture for our new home, we came across this cabinet:

Ok so It doesn't look like much, and to be honest, it wasn't in the best condition and we probably over-paid for it a little....we just felt bad for the seller I think-lol! She was the young, single mom with a little boy and an adorable golden retriever, and it was Christmas time, and she said she was trying to sell things to make money for Christmas presents.... (I swear even the dogs big sad puppy eye's were saying "please buy our cabinet so we can have money for Christmas" lol).

Maybe I caved...maybe. Plus, she lent us her car to drive it home in (who does that?!) so we really felt bad saying no. We did like it, we just weren't totally sure, but as the reveal shows, it actually turned out pretty good ;)

The cabinet is made out of walnut and has dovetail joints, however, part of the cabinet is veneer and this made for a difficult time when spraying it with paint.

We took this piece to a painter we have been working with for some of our other pieces and she has been fabulous. This piece gave her a lot of grief though, unfortunately. Apparently back in the day (whenever that was, yesteryear, maybe?! lol) they used a shilack to cover wood and it was partly composed of bug guts?! Anyho, this composition does not react well with paint, and often after painting you will see pink or orange colours bleed through the paint.

So of course after lugging this thing home (in our painters van, which she lent us- again, such nice people out there!), after a few days we began to see pink spots all over the cabinet. We had to bring it back (again in her van) and she primed it 2 more times before painting it again.

Now, it only has a bit of a yellow tinge to it in some places...but only if you really stare. So I just dont stare at it....for long.

We thought we could just leave the inside unpainted, but of course when I saw the outside sprayed all gleeming white, I had to paint the inside white...myself. That actually turned out ok, but it does make the drawers stick a bit, so I would not recommed doing that.

The inside had 3 pull out drawers, and there are 2 large drawers on the bottom. Our plan was to use this piece in our office as storage for the printer, paper, etc.

The final product:

Again, we matched the crystal knobs to the ones on the desk, and we are so happy with how it turned out. Office almost complete!

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Hard to find Hardware.....

Recently we have been changing out all of the hardware on our doors, handles on drawers, you name it. This house had some pretty 80's gold handles everywhere that we knew we had to change.

Although we are putting some pretty basic handles on the majority of the doors in the house, I really want to put a glass/crystal knob on the door to our closet....perfect room to glam up a bit, and hubby actually likes the idea!

SO, there are some pretty neat places to find hardward in our town, but I was checking online and found Anthropologie's amazing collection of hardware. They pretty much have the most amazing collection of unique and vintage looking pieces:

Knobs (a few of my favs):

Handles:

Hooks:

Switchplates:

Door Knobs:

I think they would look amazing on the right pieces- especially a vintage find that's been upcycled.
Definitely has inspired me to find a piece to work with the knobs! lol! Happy hunting!

Destroyed to Devine...Desk Transformation

The first room in our house that we decided to redo was the office. It was an easy pick since we knew we weren't going to be using it as much as other rooms in the house. Plus, it was out of the way, and we could work on it slowly without the chaos of everything being all over the place.

The one thing that I desperately wanted for our office was a new desk. I was tired of the massive ikea desk we had and wanted something that I could "re-vamp". I wanted something that looked like this:

A "French Provincial Writing Desk" I discovered it was called.

I looked EVERYWHERE.

We went to every furniture store we could think of, and the only stores that carried anything similar were selling for around $800-$1200. Way beyond our budget.  We were hoping for something in the 'under $200' range....wishful thinking I suppose. I searched on Kijiji for weeks in a million locations...nothing.

However, being the determined person I am, I wasn't about to give up on my idea of my dream desk. I could invision it beautifully in that room, and I was going to find it! Finally, one morning my brilliant husband suggested I look on Kijiji in a different geographic region- one close to his parents. That way, if we did find something, we could ask to borrow their van and drive it home.

There it was. My perfect "French Provincial Style Writing Desk".... listed at $95.00.

It must be a typo I thought, and the desk had been listed months ago, and was probably sold (another person who forgot to take down their listing).
However, I couldn't give up on this, so I emailed the person immediately and stared at my computer, waiting for a response. Nothing. I called. No answer. Sigh.....
An hour later the phone rang and Ian answered- it was the desk person!!!! I was thrilled- the desk was still available, however, it had a bit of damage to one of the corners from their dog. They had just returned from a vacation and hadn't been actively selling it. 

We drove down that afternoon to check it out. Perfect. It was in absolutely gorgeous condition- solid wood, beautifully cared for...except for the one corner which had been chewed by the dog. I looked past that. Ian was certain we could fix it would wood filler, and we were painting it anyways. Plus, for $95.00 I couldn't pass up this deal.

So we brought it home, piled on the wood filler, sanded. Piled on the wood filler again, sanded. Did that about 5 times until the corner looked somewhat like a corner again.

Then I sanded the entire desk and had it painted white.

We changed the knobs to crystal knobs and there it was. My perfect desk. For under $200.00 :)

Here's that chewed up corner that we fixed with a bit of wood filler and paint:

Put the crystal knobs on:

Ta Da! 

Another DIY project for the books!


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