We found this vintage cabinet at our local recycling centre, they have a section where unwanted furniture can be taken for a small donation. They only wanted £2 for this! The cabinet itself is so well made and the only thing we didn’t like was the colour but nowadays that’s not a problem thanks to the rise in upcycling furniture with chalk paint.
Furniture upcycling had been something I’d wanted to try for a long time, I loved the sound of chalk paint and the fact you could paint it on pretty much anything with doing any prep, I HATE the prep work! I ordered some Annie Sloan paint in English Yellow, it was the brand I’d heard most about and as it was my first time thought I would go for that one but I have to say I didn’t love it and I’ve since used a different brand that I prefer (Rustoleum). I didn’t get the Annie Sloan paint brushes as they were super expensive so I found some on eBay instead, I made sure they were synthetic too as I didn’t want ones using animal products. I got a whole pack of different sizes for £10 and they’ve worked well, obviously I can’t compare them but the saving in price made the fact they lost the odd bristle okay to deal with!
Before painting we removed the bit with drawers from the top section and Mr C did go over it with some wire wool even though you don’t ‘have’ to. I then gave it two coats before adding a layer of wax. I much prefer the look with the wax but worried that it wouldn’t be very durable. The wax makes it water resistant, I went for the Annie Sloan clear wax, it does STINK though so make sure you do it outside.
I found the main issue with the Annie Sloan paint to be that it didn’t go on very smoothly, even after watering it down a bit. There are a few patches that you can still see through a bit but I couldn’t be bothered to give it another coat.
I’ve filled the top of the cabinet with all (well some) of my yarn collection, it looks so bright and colourful and I love having it all on display.
Then the middle section has some of my books and the bottom drawer has important paper work and leads etc. I really love it.
It’s given it a new lease of life and has made the perfect storage unit and even including the paint it only cost about £10!