Reforming old furniture

Since you guys liked my desk remodeling project posted here recently, I decided to bring you more ideas of furniture restored by me.

Today's chapter features the refurbishment of an old vintage wooden china cabinet and a table (which was also previously a work desk in an office).

I guess I have always been passionate about any manual and creative work, since I can remember. My childhood with scarce financial resources led me to create, recycle, reuse and recover old or damaged things. Therefore, giving new uses to objects that had no function has always been a frequent activity in my life, and it took off when I started to decorate my own home.

I think 90% of my furniture came from second-hand stores or was inherited from relatives and friends. And in almost all of them I try to make an authorial decoration, an authentic design, that leaves these pieces with my identity.

Drawing, painting, and improving things inspires me, fills me with energy. Living surrounded by things that I consider beautiful, by art and by colors is extremely motivational for me. So whenever I can, I try to bring all these elements into my life.

But let's get to the point...

Antique china cabinet

In 2020, my father was doing a job transporting a lady's move. When he finished, he realized that she was getting rid of this piece of furniture, because it was damaged as you can see in the picture below.

Knowing that the piece of furniture was old, made with quality wood and, despite the defects, very beautiful, he soon asked if he could take it to his daughter (me), who loved to refurbish old pieces.

So he won the cabinet that was going to end up in the trash and came home bringing it to me as a gift. I was very happy and immediately thought that, after being restored, it would be in the kitchen, housing my dishes and also food (I didn't have a specific cabinet for this at the time).

After a few days thinking about how I could make this piece of furniture beautiful again, I decided to paint the part where the wood covering was peeling the most. I didn't want to cover all the wood, because in some places it was still very beautiful and I thought it would look great mixing colors with the natural tone of the wood.

And then the work began...

I lined the glass with paper and taped off the areas that would be painted. This part is obviously very annoying, but extremely necessary.

I chose a water green wood paint (some people see blue ahah) and painted all the wood on the upper doors. I also removed the drawers to make it easier and painted them on the floor. I also used some tape to mark the drawers to create the illusion of a blue frame.

After finishing, I felt that there was still something missing...some detail that would make this piece of furniture look amazing. And that's when I had the idea to make flowers in the drawers.

I used a stencil I already had at home to make the drawings, because at that time my drawing skills were even worser than now.

For the flowers I used acrylic paint and a makeup brush (!!!!) because I didn't have any at the time. 😰

When I put the drawers back in place and looked at the cabinet, I felt an enormous pride in the work accomplished. I thought it looked much nicer now!!!

Soon after it was ready, I took some photos to record my work, and after that it was moved to the kitchen, where it is until today.

Four months after this renovation, my father passed away, a victim of covid-19. So this was the last gift he gave me. I cannot look at this cabinet without remembering him and feeling him with me. So its significance is enormous, and now its value is immeasurable.

Table with drawers

In order to use some of the paint left over from remodeling the cabinet, I decided to paint one more piece of furniture. This time, an old desk that I had inherited from a relative. It had a very stained and peeling top... and I didn't see a way out to make that wood beautiful again besides painting it.

Since the legs and drawers were fine, I decided to paint just the top and make a composition of drawings again with the wood in its natural tone (although this piece also had a varnish finish).

I started by removing the ornaments that the table had on its top that were badly damaged. They looked like some kind of wooden railings, a typical design for antique furniture.

To cover up the holes left in the top after removal, I used plastic putty. I sanded the whole piece to make it as uniform as possible and covered the top with white latex paint. This first layer of white paint helps the colored paint coat to cover the wood more effectively.

And here we go again to the "artistic" part of the reform. I have this bad habit of starting the renovation without planning. At most, I know more or less the colors I'm going to use, but I never have a definite project in my head. It all comes up in the moment as I observe the evolution.

And with this table it was no different. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to use the same two colors of wood paint used in the previous project.

I followed the same idea of creating the illusion of a white frame and painted the center cream. For the designs, I wanted to make hearts and created a sort of cardboard mold so that they would look the same.

I also used cardboard old illustration to make an oval shape in the center of the painting and repeated the use of the flower stencil.

As it got dark, I had to put the table in the kitchen to continue painting. I did the following drawings all intuitively.

Here you can notice that I no longer used a makeup brush and invested in a specific one for this type of painting.

And after all that work, it was time to correct and clean up the little imperfections and paint smudges, and voilá!

I had a new desk!

In fact, almost three years after that renovation, it is on this table that I'm writing this post. I hope you enjoyed it, and soon I'll be back with a new handmade project. ❤️