Living Room cabinet transformation: before and after

Remember this cabinet?

In all it's glory, huh?  This one was a real gem of a find--$30 at my local Salvation Army.  And quite the doozy to get home in my mini-van-- but where there's a will, there's a way and all that.  It spent a good long while sitting in the "fireplace room" looking attrociously ugly and embarassing me every time we had visitors.

 

I had intended for it to remain in the "fireplace room" which, I'm happy to report, is well on it's way to becoming a full-fledged library, which I love.  However, when this big guy came home, the spot in the living room I'd intended for him suddenly seemed-- well, smaller than when I'd measured it the first time.

 

Lucky for me my husband works long hours, giving me a little while to re-group before he walked in the door and did that deer in the headlights thing, which is usually followed by "what is THAT?" and I'm not sure what else because that's when I have a sudden fabric emergency in the studio and am unable to chat for a good long while. 

So after a little shuffling around, the cabinet found a home in this corner of our living room-- seen here before.

We removed the horrible hanging wall cabinet and had the wall re-plastered.  The desk found a home in the home of a friend... and tah-dah!

Better, huh?  I love, love the way it lightens this corner of the room.  If this chair is still available next week when I have time to pick it up (smile upon me, oh Gods of Craigslist!) I think it would look lovely in this corner. 

After priming with Zinzer primer (and yeah, it really is as great as everybody says it is) the exterior got two coats in a  Glidden high-gloss (why do I also never remember when I think "this paint is cheap!" that "this paint is a royal P.I.T.A. to work with!"?) called "Elegant Lace."  The interior is "Milk Pail" from the new Martha Stewart line for Home Depot in flat.  I bought one of their $2.97 test pots, and there was enough to give the interior two coats and a tall mirror for the living room two coats, with enough left for one more small project, bringing the grand total for this project to $46!

I emptied out my milk glass collection from the pantry, and grabbed a few other little curiosities from around the house to display in here with some of our books.  I'm going to check out Anthro for some hardware-- since I only need three pulls/handles, I'm hoping the sale bin will yield some treasure for me. 

But until then, one last look...