Christmas Decorating- Antique China Cabinet

Happy Friday! I’m SO excited to share with you our new-old china cabinet! I’ve been stalking Craigslist for more than two years (honest…and let me just say I was TIRED of looking – it had ceased to be fun anymore) for a cabinet to replace our old cabinet that we had used for storing dishes. Notice how I cleverly didn’t call it a china cabinet? That’s because it was a pantry cabinet we found in the basement of the house Brian lived in through college – definitely not a china cabinet. But we had added molding and shutters as doors (Brian knocked out by hand all the wood slats so I could staple fabric into the frames as the very first DIY project we ever did as newlyweds!) and painted it various colors over the years and it served us well.

It was time to move to a grown-up cabinet, though, that had storage on the bottom instead of wasted space like our make-shift cabinet. I sold it in our big sale and have kept the money waiting until I found just the right piece that I would love and would serve us well. I wanted a small cabinet with just two doors that didn’t have any definite style, so it would go with anything. I didn’t want a big diy project (I have plenty that I can’t even get to) and I didn’t want formal. This ruled out any mahogany, French Provincial, and, well, it seemed like most everything!

I finally decided on this cabinet’s antique style that’s probably from the 30s or 40s after seeing it in other’s houses in blogland. Oh, but these babies do not come up on Craigslist I learned. Until a few weeks ago when I looked and saw an estate sale being held in a grange hall. I don’t usually look at those ads – why I did this time, I don’t know – and as I was scrolling through the list of their items, up popped this lovely cabinet!! Of course there was no price, but I drug Brian out the next morning to see it. It was still there AND it was a good price…BUT it didn’t have any glass in the doors, the shelves were terribly bowed and there were some openings where the wood was missing in the back. Who cares? Not I – those are easily fixed, especially after looking for 2+ years!

The feature I like the most, though, is the thing I’m most surprised about – the pie safe holes on the sides. Aren’t they fabulous? It has me thinking it maybe was a pantry cabinet, though, and might have had screen in the doors instead of glass. What do you think? I can’t think of another reason why they would’ve needed the upper portion to have the holes, can you?

I really love the cabinet’s simple molding that speaks of a humble quality, the original hardware, the simple wood knobs – and then the surprise of the sweet carving in the door panels. It’s sturdy and all the hinges work and are very secure.

We’ve had time to add a few supports to the shelves to help with the bowing, cover the holes in the back, fix a few more minor things, and then have glass attached to the doors. I still need to give it a light sanding and then I plan to apply a Restore-A-Finish to cover the water marks, nicks and scratches that invariably come with a piece this age (remember what it did to this dresser?).

But that won’t happen until after the holidays now, so I started filling it with white ironstone, cake stands, and red transferware. I added a couple of moss mini wreaths I made years ago (that is the same reindeer moss, by the way, from at least 5 years ago- that stuff is amazing!), a dollar store peace sign and a little chalkboard on the knob. Do I have to tell you how happy this makes me whenever I see it? Yeah, I didn’t think so. 🙂

We’ll be getting our tree this weekend, so look for a little Christmas house tour next week. Have you started decorating yet? Are you a one-day decorator or a decorate-over-multiple-days-as-you-think-about-it person like me?