I'm so excited to share this China Cabinet updo with you! If I told you we paid $75 for this cabinet, would you believe me? Because we did! Read below to see where we found this amazing deal and the process to transform it into this dreamy French Provincial China cabinet.
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We found this China cabinet at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. The ReStore is a home improvement store that sells new and gently used furniture, appliances, home goods, and building materials. Even better, proceeds from the sale of used goods go to help local families to build, rehabilitate and repair safe and affordable homes in your community. Talk about shopping for a cause! Check out habitat.org to learn more and find a ReStore near you.
I was immediately drawn to this cabinet for several reasons. The curvature at the top of the glass, the curved legs, the scalloped bottom trim, and most of all, the gold design in the glass. The cabinet was in pretty good condition and could've been used as is. However, we decided to paint it white to match our other home decor and make the gold design in the glass really pop.
The glass in the hutch is also curved. While we love this design feature, it does make photographing the cabinet difficult. Apologies for all of the glare in the photos! Also, we didn't take any pictures of the work in process. So instead we will just share pictures of the finished china cabinet and the display.
We started by removing all of the doors and drawers from the frame. Then, we removed all of the hardware and handles from the doors and drawers. We saved all of the hardware, handles, and screws in labeled plastic bags so it would be easy to reassemble later. We decided not to remove the glass from the doors. This means there is still brown wood peeking through on the back sides of the doors. The effort it would take to remove the glass to paint that wood just doesn't seem worth it to us.
Next, it's time to sand everything down. You don't need to remove all of the previous stain, but you do want to rough up the surface so the new paint sticks.
The next step is primer. We did not use a primer at first but learn from our mistakes! A good stain blocking primer will keep the previous stain color from bleeding through your paint. Especially if you are using a light color paint like white.
Now it's time for paint! I scoured Pinterest for the best paint color ideas and saw some amazing colorful ideas. Ultimately I decided on just a basic white chalk paint. I lean more towards whites or neutrals when it comes to big furniture. It's a classic choice and color can always be added with the decor you put inside of the cabinet.
Finally, the hardware needed some attention. The handles were pretty corroded. I tried to clean them using every trick in the book, but nothing seemed to work. So I gave the handles a quick spray paint with an antique bronze color so they looked cleaned but not overly gold.
We wanted a China cabinet so we could display our China, but there was additional space for some decor items. Most of these decor items are other thrift finds or craft projects we have done.
We love how this project turned out. People are always commenting on our China cabinet and they are floored when we tell them how little it cost. It's amazing what some paint and a little elbow grease can do!
