Not ONE…but TWO blue cabinets…

Just to let you know… Eden sold yesterday, so I only have Caroline left… If you missed the last few days you can check out these posts to see the description of Caroline…

2 more American Girl dolls for sale

…and this post to show you a few pictures of Caroline in some pretty dresses..

Eden and Caroline in pretty dresses

I’m calling them “Cousin Cabinets!” Mine and Cindy’s. (She’s my sister, if you didn’t know!) My cabinet was first to be painted a blue color and she painted hers just a few days ago. She’s been sharing the process of turning it from a red oil painted cupboard to this fun distressed cabinet. She does all things well, so let me show you what she’s done…Then, I might show mine… :o)

Her cabinet came from her In-Laws and is pretty old. She told me she painted it with red oil paint over 20 years ago, so there was no stripping it…it HAD to be painted…and not with some lightweight chalk paint either.

Let’s start with Wednesday morning… I got a text from Cindy saying, “I’m taking the plunge” followed with this picture…

It was her birthday, and I guess she figured if she couldn’t go out anywhere, she’d stay home and paint!

Step One…

She sanded and waxed it after she had it painted… and said it much less heavy looking and more like an antique now… (which it is!)

She’s such a neat painter, she did it all right there in her dining room!

…but had to play around a little bit too…

I asked her what color it was and she said it was called Refuge, but she’s added wax and stain on top of it to get it the way she wanted it to look.

This is how it looked before she waxed and stained it…kind of light…

Want to see a little photo shoot?

How about a before and after?

Isn’t it pretty?

Okay, now it’s time for MY blue cabinet… which Cindy did most of too! I was a newbie to painting like this…and she knew how to do it, so I let her go for it…

I wrote the following post on June 24, 2015, and will just copy the whole thing here, so you don’t have to click on a link…

I called it My new blue/gray painted cabinet… I’m so excited!!!

My sister is here visiting from Pennsylvania and we started and finished a big project today that I just had to share with you. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with dolls or fabric or sewing, but I’m still sharing it anyway. Cindy has more talent and creativity in her little finger than I do in my whole body. She is very gifted when it comes to painting, refinishing, distressing, knowing her woods, the right kind of paint, and the list goes on and on! She is seriously the most creative and talented decorator I know! She knows her stuff and she made my stuff look great! You may remember this big brown, dusty, dirty cabinet I bought from our church yard sale…

A few days ago my hubby and I cleaned it up and got the cobwebs out from the corners of it, and wiped it down with a disinfectant. It was filthy and even had a snake skin on the bottom shelf. Eeeewww! A brown recluse spider came out from the back and started crawling up the piece… my hubby grabbed my flip flop and let’s just say “the spider is no more!” Now, I’m happy to report to you that it doesn’t look like that anymore!
It’s B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l with a capital “B!”

The first thing my sister did was come over to my house to “assess” the cabinet in person and see exactly what I had and where I wanted it to go. She said that would determine what color I might want it and what type of finish to use on it. I thought I wanted it in my dining room, so we tried it there. It was okay, but didn’t make my eyeballs pop out so we played some more. Maybe it would work in my sewing room…yes, possibly paint it and I could put my dolls behind the glass to keep them from getting dusty. That was a so-so idea too, but Cindy said it seemed like sort of a waste for such a pretty piece of furniture. She’s the expert so we tried it against the wall in my living room just to the left of my big windows. B-I-N-G-O!!! Yes, that’s the spot! Once the location was determined, it was carried to the back of my house and we began! My mom even got in on the action!

If you click on any picture it will enlarge.

I already had some blue/gray paint and she said it would work great. Yay…no trip to Lowe’s; we could get started! I also had some lighter aqua colored paint that we could use on the inside. She asked me if I wanted it painted “perfectly” or did I want it to be sort of “rustic.” At first I couldn’t decide, so she showed me “rustic” with her paint brush and I said “Yes!” Not pristine painting, but having bits of the brown show through in a sort of haphazard way. You just sort of get small amounts on your paint brush and extend them in long strokes so it doesn’t cover every single spot. She did lots of criss-cross hatches with her brush and somehow it just worked! I’ve never seen anything go so quickly and transform into something I liked so much! It was incredible. The faster we painted, the faster we wanted to get it done…SO WE COULD DECORATE IT!

When we were all done, we waxed it with Miss Mustard Seed white wax and it gave it a very nice feel!

We carried it back to the living room and started to play. First we just stared at it and I even jumped up and down and did the little kiddy clapping of the hands! You know… I just loved it and all it was doing was sitting there, big and empty. It sort of changes colors with how much light is in the room. Sometimes it looks blue/gray and sometimes it’s a softer greenish blue.

Now this is where Cindy just shined! She started gathering up things from my house; you know taking this bird from here, this stack of books from there, a glass something from this shelf, bowls from another cabinet, and somehow she came up with this! I can’t believe it’s all my stuff rearranged this way. It makes so much more of a statement than it did where I had it scattered all over the place!

…and a few more things…

I don’t have the glass put in it yet because George was going to add a few more of those little clips to hold the panels in. But that’s all that has to be done to it.

Here is a better shot of “my pretties” with the doors open…

I used to collect vintage collars in lace and other fabrics. This was a black velvet one that I put behind a little convex picture frame I painted. Toile fabric was used as the background, so I guess this IS a sewing post after all… :o)

[When we got done, we went back over to my mom’s house and Amy (Erins’s sister and Hannah’s mom), had made the most wonderful dinner…alfredo lasagna, sweet potato casserole, a salad, ciabatta bread, and puff pastry strawberry shortcake with whipped cream. It was so good we couldn’t stop thanking Amy for it! Everyone has their talents and Amy’s is in the kitchen!]

Now I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea…painted this way, but it’s my style…or it’s becoming my style. I like it very much and now I’m ready to move onto something else… let’s see, will it be the chair I have stashed upstairs, the other chair in the living room waiting for a coat of paint, the headboard, the claw footed table in the sitting room, the antique chest in my bedroom… oh well, I guess I’m not lacking in future projects!

Our house is a work in progress…no flooring yet, trim is missing around many of the windows, and many other things still have to be done, but this cabinet has inspired me to make some curtains for starters… Hey…that’s a sewing post I can share with you!

See you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne