Cabinet Transformation

How do you organize all your craft supplies? I want to share with you my “new” craft cabinet and recount a little story behind it. It’s not “new” really; rather it is quite old. Recovered from my husband’s grandparent’s old, vacant home, it sat in our basement for a couple of years until we moved to our new home. Then it sat in our garage for another 6 months or so, until I finally prodded Hubby on to refinish it for me…it would be such a great project for him, no?
When I first spied this cabinet in my in-laws basement, I immediately seized upon the cabinet, recognizing it’s inherent value and the obvious potential it held for organizing some of my various art & craft supplies. These supplies are so often oddly-shaped, small, or flat (such as paper and envelopes) and it can be hard to figure out the best way to organize them all. Truly I love to organize almost anything, so chancing upon this piece of furniture with all those lovely little cubbyholes and slotted compartments was a dream come true.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight at the time to take a “before” picture to show the cabinet’s unseemly state prior to it’s transformation. Therefore, the “before” and “after” comparison will have to take place in your mind. Imagine the cabinet covered in an atrocious shade of yellow paint, somewhat akin to the color of dried up mustard (sorry Grandma…I’m sure that color was very chic at one point in time). It had no door handles, no little feet on the bottom to elevate it off the floor, and very mismatched hinges. Even the hinges couldn’t escape being painted over in this sad state of yellowness.

For the transformation to begin, we first bought an electric hand-held sander to aid in removing most of the paint. I picked out a new paint color (“Seafoam Mist” according to the paint chip) and then spent way too many hours agonizing over hardware. Anthropologie had so many sweet and unique knobs that I could just see adding a much-needed finishing touch to this cabinet. I vacillated between some with a little bird painted on the knob (the “birdwatcher knob”) or the delicate and beautifully-shaped “daisy” glass knob. But when it came down to it, I simply couldn’t bring myself to spend over $20 or so on 2 knobs (including shipping), when I could go to Home Depot and pick out 2, fine & dandy, hexagon-shaped, clear glass knobs for about $7 total. It is just a knob after all. The old, painted hinges required a new set to be purchased and offered me another opportunity to add a touch of style to it. It was a small obstacle in figuring out how to best attach them, since the old hinges used a different method for how they were attached…not to mention the problem of the mismatched hinge sizes, where some required 2 screws and some had 3. We decided to start from scratch with the hinges so Hubby filled in the wood that had been cut out for the old hinges using a sort of "in-lay" method to insert new little chunks of wood and lots of wood putty…then more sanding and more painting to make this area seamless. Finally, the new hinges could be placed on without the frustration of trying to match up to the location of the old hinges.

When the exterior transformation was complete, I cleaned the insides of the cubbies with a wet rag wrapped around a paint stir stick. During this cleaning, I came upon 2 pieces of very old, very fragile paper, wedged into the way back of the cabinet. After many attempts to get them out and high hopes that they might be of some great importance, I finally was able to work them out and find that they looked like some sort of shipping or packing slips. They contained a New York City address and the words “American Railway Express Co.” Hubby promptly took these dirty, ragged pieces of paper to the garbage and I shouted “nooo” just in time as he dangled them above the garbage.
I’ve often wondered who made this little cabinet? What did they use it for? I’ve always been quite curious as to its origins. So, I thought, these pieces of paper may hold some bit of historical information. I’ve imagined taking this cabinet on Antiques Roadshow and having them tell me a great story of it's history, and then of course, chiding me for re-painting it thereby diminishing its value…although I can hardly believe that mustard-y yellow paint was original to it in the first place.

Very recently I had some of my questions and curiosities answered as the story behind this cabinet became a little less fuzzy. Hubby’s Grandma recalls that it was used by her father when he worked for the American Railway Express Co. (which explains the packing slips). According to Wikipedia, the American Railway Express began in 1917 and “was the cargo company of choice in its days”. The cabinet's front doors were actually 1 big door, according to Grandma, who confessed to slicing into 2 (which would also explain the various sized hinges we found). She also then confessed to being the one to paint over it in that yellow color. She said that she has occasionally seen cabinets like this one in antique stores. So perhaps it did hold some value, at one time, before all its layers of paint?

Even with all our “sprucing up” (with new paint, hardware, and feet to elevate it off the floor to add a bit more character) it is still somewhat rugged (notice the uneven front ledge) and holds much charm. In addition to its great storage space inside, the top of it now offers a proper home to a cherished and most necessary crafting object: my little green paper cutter, given to me long, long ago by my Grandma.

It is interesting to finally learn a little more about this cabinet after all this time, to do some online digging using the information on the packing slips (ie: J.H. Butler, Manager, Loss & Damage Department), and to learn a little of how this cabinet came to be in our family’s possession. I simply love it and I'm sure I'll be busy re-organizing things in there again very soon!