Rorschach Cabinet

I've been on the hunt for one of those old wall mounted spice cabinets

with little drawers to hold spices or whatnots.  Well, I finally bagged my prize

 in an antique shop in a small Wisconsin town on our recent road trip.

I forget the name of the town, but according to the banner strung across its main street

the city folk will soon be hosting their annual Rutabaga Festival.  I'm not sure what

sort of activities are involved, but it sounds like a gas to me!

Here it is painted and ready to hang on the wall.

Now maybe I'm fixated on cutout designs lately, but if I were taking the

Rorschach test, the first thing out of my mouth would be

Mickey Mouse!

The ears may be slightly out of scale, but you can see it.....

can't you?

Here's how it looked when I found it......

I've seen these cabinets priced anywhere from $20 to $140 and frankly can't

see much of a difference between the high priced cabinets and thrift shop models.

Lots of factory distressing and lack of dovetail joinery indicate this piece

is not of heirloom quality, which is why I got it at the low end of the price range.

It does have some history to it, though.  At one point Kathy Bates had at it

with her baseball bat and broke both tibias.  But being the kindly caregiver that

she is, she nursed it back to health with some gloppy wood glue.

Well, I bit the bullet, fired up the jigsaw......

and put it out of its misery!

(I amputated both legs.)

After performing the surgical procedure, I painted the cabinet with

homemade chalk paint, which is still new to me.  I mixed flat green paint with

non-sanded grout. ( One cup of paint to one tablespoon of grout.)

The antiquing, on the other hand, is a decades old technique

practiced by decorative painters.  A dab of burnt umber oil paint mixed with a dollop

 of Johnson Paste Wax does the trick.  If I'm too heavy handed with

the dark wax, I just go over it again with untinted wax.  Sound familiar?

The last step is flyspecking.  Water down a few drops of black acrylic craft

paint and flick it on the piece with a stencil brush (even an old toothbrush will do).

Transformation complete.

Here's a wide angle view of the cabinet hanging above the laundry chute.

In the background, you can see more of our unfinished projects like the

built-in bench in the entryway that has been stripped and.........forgotten.

Not to mention the unfinished wood floor we uncovered when

we removed the 1970's linoleum.  And I'm so ready to paint over the

"Bear Paw" color of the kitchen walls!!!

It's time for a change.

But don't hold your breath. I've got one guest bedroom nearing completion and I

will not start another room home reno project

until said bedroom is back in use!!!

So.  Did you see Mickey Mouse in the cutout design of the cabinet, too?

Hmm, that's too bad. :@

 I'm sure there must be a self-help book out there for you us.

Thanks for visiting.

Vickie

Joing the parties at:

Common Ground Vintage Inspiration Friday

Knick of Time Tuesday

Funky Junk Interiors Saturday Nite Specail