Annabel Vita

Hello blog friends.

I finally got a chance to take a load of pictures of our new cabinet.

But first… remember this freecycled dresser?

Well, it’s now this:

Hold on a minute? Wasn’t that a perfectly lovely wooden dresser you just ripped up and painted? Well, yes and no. For one… the dresser was seriously light – the bulk of the wood was very thin pine (although to be honest, it was as light as balsa), with just a wafer of veneer over the top. It was nicely constructed, with dovetail joints in the drawers (which led us to believe it might be utility furniture from after the war). The veneer was damaged though, and because it was so thin there was no way of refinishing it, really, so painting it was an easy decision.

So I primed it

and painted it (mizzle, by Farrow and Ball, “A soft blue grey reminiscent of a west country evening mist”) (ha!)

As for ripping up it’s bones? Well. The fact is we don’t need a dresser. We needed a cabinet in the living room to keep kitchen overflow in (I wanted the bedroom’s one teeny closet back!). And we are never going to need a nice dresser, because one of the funny things about my family is that ALL our heirloom furniture is chests of drawers. (You can see one here). For some reason, my mum’s family seemed to hoard them and now she has them all. They’re all much older, better made and more beautiful than this one.

So this one? Became a cabinet of sorts. BUT. For now, I’ve done it in a way that it could be restored. I sawed the bits of wood from between the drawers off in a way that they could be replaced with careful use of woodfiller and mending plates. We’re currently using two of the drawers as shelves and storing the other two. The curtain has been attached with a tension rod (UK readers: Wilkinsons has these for about a third of the price of Homebase, by the way). So far, everything could easily be reversed.

This picture also shows how we lived with the cabinet for a bit (with the curtain on) before committing to sawing off the drawer bits, to see if we liked it. We did, so one lunch time I got my saw out, and this happened:

Down the line, if this piece has a permanent life as a cabinet? I’ll rip up the drawers to make proper shelves and try my hand at using the drawer fronts to make cabinet doors.

Back to those knobs…. here’s some close ups of the contenders…

After careful consideration, I’ve decided I like the painted wood ones best. Some of you thought these were white but they’re actually the same “mizzle” colour as the cabinet. I didn’t white balance for all of these pictures. This picture though, is a very good representation of the greeny-grey colour. I love it!

The best thing about this colour? It happened by accident – I ended up painting at my mum’s and forgot to bring enough paint of any of the colours I was considering. She had a load of mizzle left over from her bathroom, so I used it. Serendipity is lovely, non?

A closer view of the things on the top. A bunch of flowers from that Mr V, my gorgeous Roberts radio (he also gave me that!), a framed receipt from this shop (it’s handwritten), and a “Socialist Sunday school” print that I gave mr v for his most recent birthday (see, I give him things too!)

I made the curtain out of this Ikea fabric. You can see the stitch line a little down from the top – I made the rod pocket quite large so it would go over the bump in the rod easily. It’s lovely and thick so it (normally!) hangs really nicely and should be durable. I probably used less than half the metre I bought so I plan to dot a few matching accents off it around the room.

It annoys me that it isn’t hanging evenly in this photo! It normally does (I even put some pennies along the bottom seam to make sure it does, sigh). But having finally got around to taking pictures… you know how it is.

So, there we have the story of my new old cabinet!