FINALLY the heirloom medicine cabinet is finished!

Well, it has only taken six months, but the vintage medicine cabinet that I inherited from my Grandpa is finally finished.

First of all I sanded the cabinet, then I painted it, distressed it, and spray painted the tin storage boxes. All that remained was to add wooden handles (which I painted using the same bluey grey as the rustic desk in our home office): 

And to glue paper over the glass windows to hide the virulently coloured DVDs inside (I was going to use this part of the cabinet for decorative storage, but we cracked the grass screwing on new hinges so to salvage the situation I decided to paper over the damage):

We all like a nice before and after, yes? Here you go - six months of hard manual labour, and this delightful vision of loveliness:

Has been transformed into this:

The vases are from Habitat, the wooden bowl was a wedding present, and the blue and white ceramics are by Lee Page Hanson. The wooden lamp was made by my Granddad, and the photography on the wall (just seen) is by Neil Roland, and was my wedding present to Andre.

And what's inside the drawers? Why, vintage linen passed down from my Grandma, of course:

Blimey, it's nice to finally be able to post the after pics of this cabinet. What can I say, some DIY projects take a reeeeally long time (if one is, y'know, fairly to moderately lazy). Happy weekend, everyone!

Spraying Old Tin Boxes Silver

It's so very, very, very nearly done!

I have sanded the heirloom medicine cabinet, painted it, distressed it, and as a very-nearly-final step I spray painted the tin storage boxes.

Here's the before shot:

I wanted  to preserve the battered feel, but wasn't bothered about retaining the pictures or lettering - if I came from a family of doctors I could see the point in keeping ancient labels for cotton wool and bandages, but coming from a family of teachers and artists I decided to paint them instead.

So into an old Abel and Cole box they went, together with remnants of onion peel from that week's organic veg delivery:

Several layers of silver spray paint later, and here's how things were looking:

I used three different cans of silver spray (cos I had these nearly-finished cans sitting around in the cupboard) so they all came out slightly different colours, which I like a lot:

Now the cabinet needs handles - and THEN it will be done!

Distressing An Heirloom Cabinet

The next stage in restoring my recently acquired heirloom cabinet has been achieved! First I sanded it, and then I painted it.

Next up, I distressed it.

This step was very easy - I simply rubbed soft sandpaper along all the edges to reveal the darker brown paint underneath. Because I'd rubbed candle wax along all the edges prior to painting the topcoat, the paint came off very easily:

The final step will be to spray the little tin storage boxes silver - and then I Will Be Done!