the sanctuary cabinet.

Finally, I’ve completed a piece of furniture!

I know it has been quite some time since I painted a piece of furniture. I really intended to have this one finished a lot sooner. I was slowed down by a few things. First there was the really hot, humid weather that we had in July. It was far too yucky to be out in my non-climate controlled workshop.

Then, when I finally got started on it in late July, I ran out of paint. Turns out it takes more than one 16 oz. jar of paint to cover an old radio cabinet inside and out, front and back. To be honest, I always forget that it takes twice as much paint to cover twice as much area. Duh.

You also then have to factor in that I am a cheap skate. So when I ran out of paint, I decided to wait and order more with my August order from Dixie Belle rather than running to a local shop to buy it in person.

Maybe I should take a moment here to explain that since I haven’t mentioned it in a while. I am what is called a ‘content creator’ with Dixie Belle Paint Co. They don’t pay me, but they do give me a certain amount of free product at the beginning of each month. They don’t ever ask me to modify my opinions regarding their products or anything like that, in other words all opinions expressed are my own. But, yeah, I waited until the beginning of August to order more paint rather than purchasing it from my local retailer.

Naturally, my order then arrived the day I left to go visit my mom. So here we are, the tail end of August. Where does the time go?

Anyway, let’s get on with it. Here’s the piece in question.

Isn’t she a beauty? And even better, she was given to me by my reader from Iowa, Vanessa (thanks so much Vanessa)!

I believe this is an old radio cabinet with its guts removed. It didn’t have a back, and some work had already been done on it before I received it. A shelf was added and some holes were patched up. In addition, some damaged veneer was already removed from the top.

Vanessa also kindly provided some beadboard to use as the back. So the first step in this makeover, after some sanding and cleaning, was to have my handyman Ken cut the beadboard to size and attach it to the back. I should also note that I didn’t use any Bonding Boss on this piece for a few reasons. First, the existing finish was not shiny at all so I knew that my chalk mineral style paint would adhere to it just fine. Second, I was using a dark paint color so coverage over that dark-ish stain wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t think I’d need to worry about bleed thru either.

So I pulled out that 16 oz jar of one of Dixie Belle’s more recent paint colors called Sanctuary and got to painting.

You guys, if you are in the market for a moody, dark academia-ish color in a green with blue undertones, Sanctuary is perfect for you.

It definitely was perfect on this cabinet.

As I mentioned, I also painted the inside in Sanctuary, as well as the back.

Speaking of the back, you may have noticed that the lower portion is open in the back, but the front does not open down there. I’m guessing that there were originally radio parts in this lower section that didn’t need to be regularly accessed from the front.

I debated trying to figure out a way to add some sort of door to the front but in the end I decided I’d probably ruin the look of the cabinet if I messed around with it that much. So instead, I just painted it and left it open on the back. Ken suggested it would be a great place to hide your treasures since the cabinet would be up against a wall. No one would ever know what you’ve stashed inside there.

As for the upper section, why not use it to store a bunch of craft supplies?