Refinished China Cabinet

Its been about two and a half years since my husband and I got married.  Despite people telling me I would never use fine china, I went ahead and registered for a 12 piece set any way.  I figured now was the time to do it, since I would obviously never go out and buy myself a fine china set.  Luckily for us we received most of the china set we registered for.  Unfortunately at the time we got married we lived in an apartment and had no where to put it.  So the beautiful pieces of china that I registered for remained in their boxes. 

About a year after we got married we bought our first house.  Even though the house was twice as large as our apartment, we still had no where to put the fine china.  I desperately wanted a china cabinet in order to display all these wonderful looking dished, but as fate would have it, the money was never in the budget.  So after a while I started checking Craig's list hoping to find a cabinet that I would love, would look good in out kitchen, and was affordable. 

After weeks of checking I finally found one.  I excitedly emailed the seller to ask if it was still available.  He assured me it was.  When I replied to try and arrange dates to purchase it, he failed to respond.   He also removed the listing from Craigs list.  I was bummed to say the least.

It was back to square one.  After spending several more weeks looking at Craig's list I came across a china cabinet that was definately in my budget ($50), style wise I loved it, but it definately did not go with our kitchen.  However, I decided for $50 it would be worth it to purchase and see if I could paint it.  The seller and I emailed back and forth regarding the cabinet and arranging a pick up time.  At one point during this email communication she indicated I needed to bring $75 cash with me, as that was the only form of payment she was willing to accept.  I became confused and pointed out that ad listed the item at $50 and not $75.  She stated it was a mistake, and she was asking $75 for the cabinet.  I almost walked away.  But after not getting a response from me, she stated she would accept $50, if I promised to come by and get the cabinet at the arranged date (she had been stood up a few times before on the sale of this cabinet).

That following Sunday my husband and I made the 40 minute drive to go and pick up the cabinet.  Luckily there were no issues with the sellers when we picked up the cabinet and a few hours later we had it safely in our house. 

As I mentioned, I was not happy with the color of the cabinet, so I made arrangements with my mother in law to come out one day and help me paint it.  Because of the finish on the cabinet we were hopeful that we wouldnt have to do any sanding before painting.  We ended up getting some Behr paint and primer in one.  I cant remember which color it was, but it was bright white color, with a glossy sheen to it.  After taping off all the glass it took us two coats.

I forgot to get a full on before picture, but here is a picture of my mother in law taping off the glass.

My mother in law hard at work.

The cabinet after we finished with the white paint.

Because my dishes are mostly white with a silver and blue/grey trim, we decided to paint the inside of the cabinet a blue grey color in order to help the plates stand out more.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of that step.

The cabinet paining took us all day.  My mother in law left around 10pm that night.  The next day I headed out to get some spray paint to refinish the hardware.  Having never done something like this I picked up both a primer and a nickle color spary paint. 

The hardward after being primed.

Once again, I forogt to take a picture of them once they were spray painted nickle.  But here is a picture of them on the newly painted cabinet.

Finally, the finished cabinet with allt he dishes inside.

We have since replaced the eye sore read candles you see in there now.

On a side note, when we were unpacking all of our dishes to put in the cabinet, we came to find out the 4, 5 piece place setting box we received was the wrong pattern.  I contacted the company and explained the whole situation and how the china was given to us two years ago and they were willing to work with us and exchanged the set for the correct one.  I couldnt be happier with the company or my finished china cabinet!