"It won't take forever!"

That was my smarty pants response to my boyfriend when he declared that my latest adventure would take us forever to finish. Well. . .a little less than 4 months later, I am happy to report that I was only sort of wrong. (yes, I said the "W" word. . .shhh don't tell him!)

In early August of this year, I began a search for the perfect fabric storage system for my sewing room. I was not quite sure what I wanted but I knew that I wanted it to showcase the fabrics themselves. While being given a "tour" of my boyfriend's Mom's sewing room, I absolutely fell in love with her storage solution. She uses an old china cabinet and I just adore the way her beautiful stacks of fabric are visible. It really brings such a warmness to her creative space.

I decided that this was it. I had to have something like this too! Once word got out that I wanted a cabinet of my own, a friend of mine told me that that antique store by her house was selling a china cabinet that had been painted a beautiful aqua color. This was particularly intriguing to me due to my fascination with the color aqua. My vintage Singer sewing machine is a fantastically retro shade of aqua that I have been in love with since the day it was given to me. So of course, as soon as I had my heart set on this aqua wonder, it was sold to someone else. Major bummer!

Determined to have my aqua china cabinet, I pressed on and along with my best Internet searching friend, began scouring the pages of Craigslist in search of a suitable replacement. We succeeded! We found one in great condition, not too far from my house and within my price range. After giving it a good once over, and hearing about how it was hand made by the owner's grandfather, I was sold. Now came the fun part!

We promptly moved it into my boyfriend's parents backyard to begin the real work. (this option offered way more working space than my second floor one bedroom apartment balcony) Step one was to sand off the old stained surface in preparation for painting. Even using electric sanders, this took us several days and was quite the work out! We got it all rough sanded and then went over everything again with a fine sand to finish it off.

During all this sanding, we noticed that there was a pretty detailed trim piece that connected the top part of the cabinet to the base. By the time we noticed this piece, neither of us really felt like breaking out the hand sander and sanding all the intricate grooves of this piece. Lets just say it didn't take much twisting of my arm for me to agree to rip off the old trim piece and buy a new section of trim that was already ready for paint. I was already chomping at the bit to get to the REALLY fun part of painting anyways. So, we found a suitable piece and my boyfriend's Dad cut it to fit. We nailed it on, filled up the gaps with some wood caulking and we were good to go!

I had gathered a handful of paint chips ahead of time to try to match the perfect aqua with my sewing machine. Suddenly I thought, rather than search for a close match with an already existing color, why not create an exact match? So, we lugged my 40-some odd pound sewing machine to my local home depot and had them make paint that matched my sewing machine EXACTLY! I was so happy! I chose a coral color (Behr light sandstone) for the inside shelving area to add a pop of color. And since my dream job has always been to be a color namer, (for nail polish or paints- come on, you have bought a nail polish just because you liked the name at least once right?)I decided to call my newly matched color "1950's kitchen appliance aqua" (clearly we now know why I am not a professional color namer)

While at The Home Depot, I also picked out some new hardware. I was not crazy about the metal accent pieces and didn't know how well they would mesh with my "1950's kitchen appliance aqua". Also, I am totally a silver girl when it comes to metal. So, before sanding, I removed all the metal accents. I wanted hardware that was clean but not too simple and yet, fancy enough to be feminine and still not distract from the feature of the piece. I thought these pieces fit the bill perfectly.

Painting took a few days as well. The inside was a little too tight of a space to use the roller efficiently, what with all the rungs for the shelving getting in the way. So, I did the inside with a brush. It was slightly more tedious but I thought it would look more consistent than having both brush strokes and roller marks. The outside however, I did exclusively with a roller.

And last but not least came the doors. The glass in the door frames was very old and warped. When we pulled the pieces out ,to make painting easier, small pieces of glass flaked off and it was sooo thin! We decided that due to my extreme tendency toward clumsiness and general safety for my nieces etc, to go ahead and replace the glass. I took it to a local glass shop and they had them good as new the next day. Once that was done, there was nothing left to do but move it in! (oh and keep my fingers crossed that my fabric stash would fit inside)

Don't you just love it? I adore the fact that I can see all of my fabrics, and am impressed with myself that there is still room to grow my fabric collection. It certainly took a lot of help from friends to get it finished but I couldn't be happier with the end product. Was it worth it, you may ask? Well, lets just say that to have a finished product that is exactly what I wanted in every way, even if it HAD taken forever, I would have kept at it. :)