Our latest piece of "new - old" furniture is something we have had around the house for quite a few years

It has spent a bit of time inside
Firstly, it was in out bedroom and I kept my "bits'n'pieces" in it
It looked awful!!
I never liked it!!
No, the truth is - I HATED IT!!

It then got moved into Geoff's computer room and he used it to keep his computer gear in

Then it got dumped into the carport where it used to store baseballs and gloves
And even some dirty old shoes!!
And quite a few cobwebs and spiders!!

Recently we have been looking for another small display cabinet and couldn't find anything that was suitable

Geoff thought this one could be cleaned up and would be okay
It wasn't the era of our other furniture and I was a little unsure but we decided to give it a go!!
If things didn't turn out, it could continue to live in the carport!!

We had a professional furniture restorer come and give us a quote
And that was $1400.00!! - way too much!!

Geoff thought he could do it himself

The cabinet was made in the 1960's (I think) and had a light laminated top and two drawers with the same laminate on the front
It has concave glass sliding doors, a mirror back and splayed legs

The sides and trim were a darker veneer which was peeling off in places
There had been some repairs carried out on the drawers before we aquired it and they were not good - the repairs had been done with chipboard and this had all swollen up and the drawers couldn't be opened or closed properly

One of the posties at work is a cabinet maker and he repaired the drawers for us in decent timber

I asked him to keep the handles because I wanted to see if they could be cleaned up
I thought they were old plastic but they were brass and cleaned up beautifully!!

Geoff filled in the holes, sanded everything down, painted the inside 'antique white' and painted the outside with 'walnut' varnish

We had to buy new legs and they needed varnishing as well

Three coats of paint in three days and it was all ready!!

It has come up beautifully and I am really pleased with the look

I have decided I quite like the retro look and I am putting our 'collectables' that are close to that era in it

Geoff has done a very professional job and it looks great as you can see from the photos below!!

It will never appear on "The Antiques Roadshow", but my feelings have gone from 'hate' to 'like very much'!!

 

--Auctions for similar Cabinets

Saturday 8th April 2006 We were out for a drive and doing our regular rounds of the secondhand and antique stores in Cairns This was one of the places we visited We saw a display cabinet very similar to ours It had the same coloured laminex on top, and the outside was in good condition with all the veneer in place from what we could see It had the same curved sliding glass doors and shelf However, the mirror at the back was completely crazed over and would have to be re-silvered It was priced at $89.00 and would need quite a few dollars spent on it!!!