A Roadside Find Transformed into an Outdoor Beverage Cabinet

Sometime around mid March, as I was on my way home from one of the kid's basketball games, I came across this little cabinet sitting all by itself on the side of the road. Immediately I stopped the car and jumped out for quick inspection. It seemed to be in pretty good shape despite the worn finish and ridiculous number of spider webs and spider's eggs.

The piece sat in our garage for about a month or so until I finally decided to pull it out and take a really good look at it. I took the sander to the top and sides and made the happy discovery that this poor neglected cabinet was solid wood! Now I love painted furniture just as much as the next DIYer, but for some reason I kept thinking 'leave it o'natural!'

I also needed to determine where to put my new little cabinet. My mind quickly went to the thought of using the piece on our screened-in back porch because I was so desperately in need of some storage space there. To be honest I hated the fact that I had to run in and out of the house with my plastic plates and cups every time the kid's asked to eat outside. So while this cabinet is primarily the centerpiece for serving outdoor libations, I am also using it to house my outdoor dinnerware. 

I also made the decision to do away with the top drawer after seeing a few beverage cabinets on the internet.

The drawer was replaced with a sheet of pine I picked up for around $10 at my local Lowes, and then Mr. Rosemary Lane cut the sheet to fit perfectly in the cabinet. It was easily installed by removing the back of the cabinet and sliding the wood in place. I attempted to stain the pine to match the wood of the cabinet but that didn't work, it came out way to cool, no where close to the warm color of the cabinet. Next I tried to paint the wood an almond color which ended up looking really awful, even worse than the mismatched stains. Then, while rummaging through my countless cans of spray paint in the garage, I found a can of pounded metal paint in a silver color I had bought a few years back to make a Halloween costume for Michael. This turned out to be the perfect color because it totally tied together some of the other industrial elements used in the space. Square shaped drawer pulls in a bright, brushed nickel were purchased to replace the nasty ones that came with the piece. The hinges are the originals, I just sanded off their already chipped and rusted surface to reveal the silver color underneath.

The entire piece was sanded down inside and out, and both a clear poly acrylic plus several coats of polyurethane in a satin finish were applied. I already had the two polys, so the total cost of the project was roughly $15. Ten dollars for the wood and about $5 for the drawer pulls, plus a good three days of intense work, is all that was needed to create this beautiful storage showpiece for the screened-in porch. 

Now, the natural wood finish I felt compelled to use actually works to help break up the white of my wicker furniture by giving the eye a place to land while taking in the visual of this space.

How about you...have any furniture projects you are in the throws of???
Would love to hear about them!!!

In the meantime wishing you all a great week!

XO

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Board & Batten Kitchen Island Makeover

Today I am going to share with you the tutorial on how Mr. Rosemary Lane created a new look for our rather boring kitchen island for just under $300. Now the island is fairly large and you can see that it has a 45 degree angle at the far end. The counter top space measures 94 inches at its longest point. Since it is so long we made the decision to paint the island white in an effort to break up all of the honey toned wood of the kitchen cabinets.

Materials used in this project were...

16  3 1/2 inch wide X 4ft. oak boards (one was used to create each box)

1 4ft X 4ft MDF board with 1/2 inch thickness

1 2ft. X 4ft. MDF board with 1/2 thickness

4 inch wide baseboard molding enough to go around the entire island

miter saw

air compressor nail gun

wood glue

white caulk and paint

First we had to remove the old quarter round from around the entire island. (Michael helped with this job.)

Then it was decided to make the sides of the boxes 3 1/3 inches in width. This actually determine how many boxes we would need to cover the back and sides of the island, which when all was said and done it totaled eight boxes. Both MDF and the oak boards were used to create each box. 

The bottom board is MDF cut in 7 1/2 inch wide strips. This is so when the 4 inch wide baseboard was attached there would be 3 1/2 inches exposed to match the width of the oak boarding.

After carefully measuring and cutting all of the boards needed, assembly began.

The board mapping was done very simply in an end to end fashion. No angles were cut except for where the counter took its own 45 degree angle. To the back of each board was first applied a healthy amount of wood glue. Then the board was attached to the back of the existing counter using less than one inch nails. Once Mr. RL was done attaching all of the boards, I sanded down the old finish along with the oak boards and gave the entire island a coat of fresh white paint.

As you can see we have an outlet at the end of the island which was going to interfere with the flow of the board and batten. We thought about moving the outlet box but that seemed like an awful lot of extra work. Instead I found outlet covers at Lowes which had a bit of thickness to it which almost perfectly matched the 1/2 inch thickness of the boards. Mr. Rosemary Lane cut around the outlet cover and then I caulked to blend it together before painting.

The front of the island is all drawers with one cabinet. So I took everything out to the garage to give it a good sanding down

Then with a sponge roller I painted on the white. New bin style drawer pulls from Home Depot replaced the old handles. I needed eight and each pull ran $4.99.

The final step in this process was to add the 4 inch baseboard to the bottom of the island. Here 45 degree angles were cut to match up the ends of the baseboard to create a neat and finished look.

Again the BEFORE...

...and the AFTER

  The BEFORE

The AFTER

In retrospect we could have done the entire island using only the MDF which would have saved us close to 1/3 of the total project cost. However at the time Mr. RL wasn't sure about using all MDF so he went ahead and purchased the oak.

But overall I am thrilled with the pretty board and batten in the bright white. It's funny because in the late afternoon when the natural sunlight hits the island it seems to take on a beautiful glow!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

XO

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