Dining Room Corner Cabinets

Last fall I was addicted to Craigslist.  I would check it every night praying that someone out there would be getting rid of something that I could transform into something amazing!  Well, someone did!  I found these corner cabinets!!!  Aren't they beauties?

Oh wait.  That's an "after" picture.

This is what they looked like "before."

I asked Jason if we could buy them, thinking he would say, "I don't think so, dear!"  To my surprise, he said, "They're great!  E-mail the guy!"  We contacted the man and Jason went to pick them up.  Apparently they had been trying to sell them for awhile at their garage sale and no one bought them.

They were in great condition but just needed a little paint and some new hardware.

We removed the doors, glass, and hardware and sanded everything down.

We filled the holes where the old hardware was since we knew we wanted to get new hardware.  Then we primed the cabinets, doors, and shelves.

Next, we painted them.  It took forever.  These corner cabinets, the doors, and shelves required five coats of paint.  The paint we used was quite thick.  To prevent it from getting too thick and streaky, we did thin coats of paint.  This is the paint we used.  It rocks.

Our dining room was again a disaster during the painting.

We managed to finish painting the base of the cabinets right before Christmas but had to quit on the doors.  So this is what they looked like for about two months around December and January.

I was right back at it again in February, however, and finally finished painting the doors.  Hooray!

We had a hard time finding pulls for these cabinets.  Everything we tried was too large for the small drawers.  We checked out the hardware from Restoration Hardware and found these smaller pulls, which were the perfect size.  They are polished nickel 3" pulls from the Gilmore collection.  The only problem we had during the installation was the fact that two of the screws broke in half and got lodged in the drawer.  Poor Jason was so frustrated!  We don't know what caused them to break because he pre-drilled holes into the drawers before screwing them in.  The screws for the other pull went in without any problems!  We had a tough time getting the screws out of the drawer. We returned the pull and what was left of the screws to Restoration Hardware.  They gave us a new one, no questions asked.

The knobs also came from Restoration Hardware.  They are 1" knobs from the Gilmore collection.

We found our hinges at the Rockler store.

The glass clips came from a local hardware store.

I knew that I wanted to line the backs of the cabinets with something to make my dishes stand out a little.  The white on white was a little boring.

We have a store close to our house that sells wallpaper and other supplies.  They have the prettiest display windows showcasing their wallpaper.

Oliver and I went in the other day and found some paper they had in stock.  I found a roll of paper that I liked and they were willing to sell it to me for $20.  If I would have ordered some it would have cost me over $60 and I would have had to wait a couple of weeks. 

I measured the backs of the cabinets and cut away.

Here is what one section looked like with the paper.  I love it!  The dishes stand out, but the paper isn't too busy or obnoxious.

The last step was to add the glass back into the cabinets.

These corner cabinets turned out to be quite the project.  However, when I see the before and after pictures, I think the work we went through was worth it.  I love the extra storage and think that they look original to our Cape Cod house, almost as if they're built in.  Have you ever found something on Craigslist and transformed it into something pretty fantastic?  Please share!

Have a great day, friends!



I'm linking this up to Between Naps on the Porch, Home Stores A to Z, A Beach Cottage, Tatertots and Jello , Simple Home Life, Just a Girl, Thrifty Decor Chick and Miss Mustard Seed.  All are such lovely blogs!  Please check them out!