We did it!

Last weekend, Nick and I purchased a seen-better-days, sliding door cabinet from Urban Ore, with the intention of turning it into a console table for our entry hall. We certainly had our work cut out for us. We measured our space beforehand and knew that we had 40 inches, in which to fit our cabinet. Of course the one that we ended up loving was unfortunately 43 inches. Never mind that! We decided we could cut the cabinet down to size.

So, we took over to Nick's parents' house, where my very talented father-in-law, Bob and Nick set to work making the cabinet fit into our space...
First, they took the doors off,

then took out the nails holding the sides together,

measured (and measured again) and then sawed off 6 inches,

used a rubber mallet to knock off the side, 

 pried off the excess top and bottom pieces, to preserve the side,

 routed out the side for the shelf to fit in and the side to fit back into the top and bottom of the cabinet,

 and put the whole thing back together, and then sanded it to get rid of some the scratches and make it easier to take paint.

 Nick then  then primed and painted the whole cabinet for me using Behr Premium Plus Painter and Primer in One. We chose a glossy bright white for the exterior cabinet. Nick also added some legs that we got from Home Depot:

{photo via homedepot.com}

What did I do during all this? Sadly, I didn't have a big part in the rebuilding process, other than handing tools, making the decisions, and taking pictures of the process. However, as soon as we got the cabinet back home, it was my turn to finish up the project. I added a final coat of white paint to the whole cabinet to give it a clean glossy look and then set to work on jazzing up the cabinet doors. First I primed the cabinet doors. 

Then I spray painted the doors with Rustoleum's  Winter Gray.

When everything was painted gray, I used Frog Tape to tape off the panels. I really like Frog Tape because it it really seals and there's minimal bleeding of paint. It makes for clean lines.  Prep work is never fun, but it makes the end result look much more polished and clean. The moral of this lesson? It's important to spend time taping to get the look you want. 

 I took a little color leap-of-faith and painted a yellow stripe around the interior of the door panels. I've really been liking the yellow and gray combo that's been cropping up lately. I painted the "panes" with the same glossy white paint of the rest of the cabinet.

 

Lastly, I used a stencil that I picked up from Michaels for a couple of dollars. (On a side note, here's the 9,000th reason I love my husband. Last Saturday evening, I decided on the spur of the moment that I wanted to use a stencil for the interior of the doors. Nick, sweetly turned off the TV and drove me over to Michael's right away AND thoughtfully helped me choose the right stencil.) 

(A tip for stenciling: to keep the stencil from running or looking too thick, wipe it off between two paper towels after each stencil. It keeps things looking neat and tidy!)

Although painting the doors took the better part of my weekend, I'm really happy with how they turned out! (Plus, I painted on a sheet on our living room floor, so I was able to catch up on my DVRed Nate Shows from last week!) 

Our last step was to put the sliding doors back on the cabinet. Here's where we ran into a few problems... 

If you look in the upper left hand corner, you can see that the corner doesn't fit together all the way anymore... The little gap is fairly noticeable so we might put a thin piece of the molding around the front of the cabinet so that the gap doesn't show.

I have a little touch up painting to do, but for all intensive purposes, we're done! I think our new console makes the whole entry hall brighter and I love the extra (concealed) storage it will provide for us!

So, what do you think?? We'll leave you with one last before-and-after....

I linked to Southern Hospitality's Top Projects of 2010.