The name is Red...Farmhouse Red

Happy Independence Day everyone!  We have some History Channel special going and probably will most of the day.  I think Andy is planning on washing the cars, and I am sure I will busy myself with some project.  But you didn't stop over here to find out how we are spending the day.  So, on to the project!

The story starts with the day I found this gem in the store for $10...

Solid wood, vintage look, good size (about waist height), and a doable project.  Plus, I had been pining over this project by Katie Bower and was just waiting for my piece of red furniture to come along.  It took me a while to figure out where I'd use it, but I did and so I snatched it up and brought it home with me.  It found it's new home here:

To house this hot mess:

Much better already, right?  It was, but it needed some work.  The finish was, shall we say, yucky.  Plus, we'd need to reconfigure the doors to allow the garbage can to pull out without having to open both sides.  Also, the garbage didn't pull out very easily.  Oh, the wheels began a turning.  But first, I had to get that finish up to par.  

I started by sanding down the top and then applying two coats of Minwax Polyshades in Antique Walnut Gloss...

And went from this:

To this:

So much better!  The stain settled into the kicks and dings the top had acquired over time and gave it that old look I love.

Now, onto the body of the cabinet.  I opted not to sand but to just put on the paint.  This is where things get interesting.  The color we had selected was not doing it for me.  I was going for Farmhouse Red--a muddy, dark, red color.  This color was full on Salmon Pink.  100% the wrong color.  I gave it two coats and let it dry but no dice.  At this point, I headed back out to the store and picked up a couple test pots of Red Chili Pepper by Valspar.

I could tell by the first coat that this was what I had imagined all along.  So, the cabinet got two good coats, time to dry, and then a light sanding with 220 grit paper.  To give it the Vintage Farmhouse look I desired, I went back over it with Minwax Jacobean stain. 

Oh, you can't see the label?  Let me explain.  In the process of discovering that the first color was the wrong color, I kicked the can of stain over.  Totally by accident, not out of frustration.  But frustration did ensue after that.  Most of it ended up on the garage floor, but some of it was on my leg, my socks, my shoes, and even less in the can.  There was enough left though to complete the project. 

Once I put a quick swipe of stain on the cabinet (quickly followed by a wet cloth), I ended up with the following:

Yeah, they do look like two different colors.  It's really somewhere in between the two (click the pictures to enlarge).  

Now, let me explain how we reconfigured the doors.  We decided we wanted a pull out option, so our first step was to fuse the doors together.  We laid them down with the right spacing and attached a piece of plywood with the nail gun.

We then attached the drawer rollers, first to the inside of the cabinet:

And then to the shelf that the garbage can would sit on:

These come in packages of two.  We used 16 inch, medium weight drawer glides.  They were $4 at Lowes for a set.  The last thing we did was attach supports to the door and shelf:

You can't see the shelf here, but imagine it propped up along the upright piece of the brace.  We just used metal braces, also from Lowes.  I think they were $6 each.  So once we had that done, we brought the whole thing in the house, and set it up...

I'm having a hard time getting a picture that shows the rich red this really is, but this is pretty close.  And here is an 'in-use' shot...

We might need a slightly smaller garbage can, but for the time being, it works.  We also need to get the handles attached to the corners of the now-faux cabinet doors to match the rest of the kitchen hardware, and put a weight on the back of the shelf (its front heavy right now). You can see pictures of the rest of our kitchen here and here.  Its amazing how the door/drawer style matches our current cabinets to a T.  

Can I just say I L-O-V-E this cabinet?!  It turned out exactly like I thought it would, and it plays into the Vintage Farmhouse look I'm shooting for in the kitchen.  Its a great pop of color in the light kitchen and helps pull in the dark color wood in the dining room furniture.  I have more plans for this color, so stay tuned, but in the meantime, here are a couple more things I have picked up for cheap to play into my VF theme...

     

These sit above the double window in the kitchen.  The double window is right above the new cabinet.  Picked these up for $1 each.

 

Remember what I said about roosters?  These fall into Vintage Roosters, so they are acceptable.  A set of four canisters, they hold dog treats (flour), candy (sugar), my work laptop cords (coffee), and pens (tea).  I want to say I paid $20 for the set.  

Did you happen to see that wire basket on the top of the new cabinet?  I picked that up for about $1.50, and initially bought it to house Christmas balls during the holidays, but I am kind of thinking it's also Vintage Farmhouse-y and now on the hunt for a couple dozen fake eggs to put in it.  

This project for sure stretched us.  Retro-fitting a piece of furniture isn't the easiest thing to do, but we made it work (with a lot of measuring, thinking, and time).  When it was all said and done, Andy said "That is beautiful!"  Now I call that a successful makeover!