8 years ago, my loving husband bought me a tall (8 ft) cabinet from Ikea. I tried to find a picture for you, but they don't sell it anymore. It was unfinished pine, with a lighted glass cabinet on the top, and cabinets with doors on the bottom. We took it home assembled it like the store display, put a coat of polyurthane on it, and loved it...for about 6 months. Then I started to change it. I sanded all of the polyurathane off, and painted the cabinet the ugliest beige you could imagine. I painted the whole darn thing. That lasted 1 week. I resanded the whole cabinet and put the polyurathane back on it. Luckily for my husband, I let the cabinet be for a few years.
Then, about 4 years ago, I got tired of the rattling glass when the toddlers were running through our house. Mark had just gotten a circular saw for Christmas, and I thought...sure, let's give this baby a try. I took apart the cabinet, stained it, put new legs on half of it, and sawed down the supports for the upper cabinet and made a new, 3 ft glass cabinet.
This is what I made with the cabinet's with wood doors. I love it. It is great for all of my extra bowls and serving ware. And it has cute bun feet, just for fun.
The remaining glass cabinet wasn't my favorite, but I needed somewhere to put my china. So it remained my "china cabinet" for the past few years until my hubby bought me the sweetest gift this past October. I have been wanting this cabinet for a looooong time. I will never take a circular saw to this beauty.
Once I moved my china out of the rickety old Ikea cabinet, I realized that I could have some fun. I have never liked the support legs of the cabinet with all of the pegholes. I think it was supposed to be used in a pantry or something. And I have been thinking about stenciling or wallpapering the back of our huge wall unit in the den. So I decided my Ikea cabinet would be the perfect place to practice.
First, I took off the leg supports and took a look at my years of "re-doing" this cabinet. In hindsight, I should have taken the supports off when I stained the unit 4 years ago. So I had to sand both sides of the cabinet before I got started.
I honestly don't remember the exact stain I used the first time I stained this cabinet. I found this in the never ending supply of old stains and paints. Since I am not overly worried about this cabinet, I didn't re-sand the entire thing. I think it might be on it's last life anyways. I did add another coat of polyurethane on top of my staining. I think this is my 4th time putting polyurethane on this cabinet. Yikes.
I went to the big orange box store, and picked out these legs for the cabinet. They have a bunch of choices. I didn't want to spend too much on the nicer turned legs. You can find many options right by the lumber section. I had to stain and put polyurethane on the legs.
In order to attach the legs to the base of the cabinet, you need these brackets. You can get mounting brackets that even make your table legs attach at an angle.
First step was to put the mounting brackets on the BOTTOM of the shelf in order to secure the legs. Did you catch that? BOTTOM. Guess what I did?
This is the TOP of my cabinet. Yep, big mistake. I have plenty of excuses...baby was waking up from nap, I needed to rush upstairs and get him, etc. Not only did I make the mistake of drilling the bracket into the TOP of my shelf, I drilled all 6 screws before noticing. Who does this? Me. Don't be like me.
Sooo, now I get to fill the holes, sand, stain and poly that section. Argh. Quite honestly, I haven't fixed it yet. I was so frustrated, and I really wanted to get to the stenciling, which was the whole point of this cabinet re-do. So I still need to go back and do it. I hate fixing my projects. I just want to run with it and have them work perfectly. Can I have a little helper who comes behind me and fixes everything? And I never know about it? Yes please.
Here is what the legs should look like. 4 of them. On the bottom.
Okay, back to the stenciling. I found this stencil at Michaels and loved it. If I were to do this again on a nicer, bigger surface, I would definitely pay more money for a larger stencil. This was tedious work. I tested my pattern with a crayon and paper first, just to make sure I liked the look before I began with paint. I used a small sponge brush and a little bit of masking tape.
Also, if this was a treasured cabinet, I would have centered the design in the middle of the cabinet, working from the inside out. I knew that my design would be off center, but frankly had a really hard time doing the stencil by the edge. I decided to take the easy way out since I wasn't too worried about the cabinet.
This took a lot of time and patience, but I really like how it turned out. The areas where the paint leaked beyond the stencil were easy to clean off. And it mainly leaked because I had such a small stencil. Here is a website with some AWESOME stencils. They are huge and beautiful. If I end up doing an entire wall or wall unit, I am going to order from this shop. They even have a stencil for birch trees. I just might do that in the kid's bathroom...
So now this cabinet lives in the craft room. This was good practice for me before I attack something big. If you try this, please don't be like me. Spend more money on a big stencil...and don't be an idiot when you attach legs to your project. I still can't believe I did that...
Then, about 4 years ago, I got tired of the rattling glass when the toddlers were running through our house. Mark had just gotten a circular saw for Christmas, and I thought...sure, let's give this baby a try. I took apart the cabinet, stained it, put new legs on half of it, and sawed down the supports for the upper cabinet and made a new, 3 ft glass cabinet.
This is what I made with the cabinet's with wood doors. I love it. It is great for all of my extra bowls and serving ware. And it has cute bun feet, just for fun.
The remaining glass cabinet wasn't my favorite, but I needed somewhere to put my china. So it remained my "china cabinet" for the past few years until my hubby bought me the sweetest gift this past October. I have been wanting this cabinet for a looooong time. I will never take a circular saw to this beauty.
Once I moved my china out of the rickety old Ikea cabinet, I realized that I could have some fun. I have never liked the support legs of the cabinet with all of the pegholes. I think it was supposed to be used in a pantry or something. And I have been thinking about stenciling or wallpapering the back of our huge wall unit in the den. So I decided my Ikea cabinet would be the perfect place to practice.
First, I took off the leg supports and took a look at my years of "re-doing" this cabinet. In hindsight, I should have taken the supports off when I stained the unit 4 years ago. So I had to sand both sides of the cabinet before I got started.
I honestly don't remember the exact stain I used the first time I stained this cabinet. I found this in the never ending supply of old stains and paints. Since I am not overly worried about this cabinet, I didn't re-sand the entire thing. I think it might be on it's last life anyways. I did add another coat of polyurethane on top of my staining. I think this is my 4th time putting polyurethane on this cabinet. Yikes.
I went to the big orange box store, and picked out these legs for the cabinet. They have a bunch of choices. I didn't want to spend too much on the nicer turned legs. You can find many options right by the lumber section. I had to stain and put polyurethane on the legs.
In order to attach the legs to the base of the cabinet, you need these brackets. You can get mounting brackets that even make your table legs attach at an angle.
First step was to put the mounting brackets on the BOTTOM of the shelf in order to secure the legs. Did you catch that? BOTTOM. Guess what I did?
This is the TOP of my cabinet. Yep, big mistake. I have plenty of excuses...baby was waking up from nap, I needed to rush upstairs and get him, etc. Not only did I make the mistake of drilling the bracket into the TOP of my shelf, I drilled all 6 screws before noticing. Who does this? Me. Don't be like me.
Sooo, now I get to fill the holes, sand, stain and poly that section. Argh. Quite honestly, I haven't fixed it yet. I was so frustrated, and I really wanted to get to the stenciling, which was the whole point of this cabinet re-do. So I still need to go back and do it. I hate fixing my projects. I just want to run with it and have them work perfectly. Can I have a little helper who comes behind me and fixes everything? And I never know about it? Yes please.
Here is what the legs should look like. 4 of them. On the bottom.
Okay, back to the stenciling. I found this stencil at Michaels and loved it. If I were to do this again on a nicer, bigger surface, I would definitely pay more money for a larger stencil. This was tedious work. I tested my pattern with a crayon and paper first, just to make sure I liked the look before I began with paint. I used a small sponge brush and a little bit of masking tape.
Also, if this was a treasured cabinet, I would have centered the design in the middle of the cabinet, working from the inside out. I knew that my design would be off center, but frankly had a really hard time doing the stencil by the edge. I decided to take the easy way out since I wasn't too worried about the cabinet.
This took a lot of time and patience, but I really like how it turned out. The areas where the paint leaked beyond the stencil were easy to clean off. And it mainly leaked because I had such a small stencil. Here is a website with some AWESOME stencils. They are huge and beautiful. If I end up doing an entire wall or wall unit, I am going to order from this shop. They even have a stencil for birch trees. I just might do that in the kid's bathroom...
So now this cabinet lives in the craft room. This was good practice for me before I attack something big. If you try this, please don't be like me. Spend more money on a big stencil...and don't be an idiot when you attach legs to your project. I still can't believe I did that...
You need your own tv show!
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