My Lucky Day

I always see these amazing refurbished furniture stories on Pinterest, blogs and in magazines. They find a great piece of furniture for a steal and turn it into something amazing. I never seem to have that kind of luck. EVER! Till I was out shopping with my niece Justice. We were at a thrift store and I saw an armoire with mirrored doors. One of the mirrors was missing. Since I was in line I sent her over to check the price. She didn't see one. I decided that even if it did have a price it would be more than I was willing to pay. That's my kind of luck. So I walked away from it. A couple days passed and I couldn't stop thinking about it. So I went back. I took my father and his truck, just in case luck was with me. I didn't expect it to be there, honestly. I also didn't expect to really come home with it. My plan was to find out it cost too much and know I tried. With my father in tow I bought it for $40.00. Woohoo! Finally I found my steal. However, it was well made but a little rickety and it was a hanging armoire. I thought I'd find shelves far more useful. So my father and I had a new project.

We started with this.

As you can see it is missing one mirror and you may or may not be able to see the splotchy paint. It looks to me like someone tried to sand the paint off so the paint finish was not attractive. As I mentioned before it was a hanging wardrobe. So it has no shelves inside. Just a rusty bar. I wanted to add shelves to make it more user friendly and my father thought it would help to make the whole thing more sturdy. We are a thrifty pair - we tend to use what is on hand when ever possible. That meant plywood. Which was fine by me. It's inside after all.

Sanded down and shelves constructed

 Did you notice that in adding shelves we lose space at the bottom. I did... Thank goodness I have a quick thinking father. He suggested we build a shelf and put hinges on it. Wow! I now have a hidden chest within my armoire. Cool!

The trap door

After construction was complete we were ready for a new finish. So it was time to sand and sand and sand some more. This is also when my father mentions he has a paint sprayer he has never used before. Huh? While reading the instructions on how to use the thing I almost said it's not worth the trouble. But my father has far more patience than me. So he read and watched the DVD and we got it ready to go. WOW!!! I take it all back. It was well worth the effort. The paint finish is smooth and even. We only used one quart of paint for the entire armoire. A very pretty sage green by Olympic. It's a paint and primer in one called Cavern Moss. We kept all the original hardware except the door knobs. Those were not original to the piece anyway. I replaced those with oil rubbed bronze knobs.

 

I knew when I saw the missing mirror that I wanted to remove the remaining mirror and put fabric in the cut outs. I have a ton of fabric on hand so it would be easy to do. When we removed the mirror we found a date on the back. It fits perfectly into the door so it must be original to the piece. It was dated July 10, 1944. I love having that little trivia. I saved the mirror. I may find a project for it later I'm sure. We made wood inserts that fit into the grooved out opening. I used fabric spray adhesive to adhere the batting then I sprayed over that to adhere the fabric. Oh and I did spray the fabric down with Stainguard before I did all this (be sure to test it first.) We used the little plastic mirror holders to hold the insert into the door. It all went together perfectly. When I first started out, I had planned to distress this piece. I loved the end product so much after painting it I decided to leave it. If I tire of this finish I can always start over...

Beautiful

I am very happy with the finished piece.