Cameron's Cabinet: Volume I

I bought this diamond in the rough at an antique store in Fayetteville for just under $50 with some convincing from my family (thanks Mom, Uncle Mike and Aunt Cindy).  It wasn't in terrible shape but could definitely use some TLC.

Purpose: Changing table for the baby's room
Cost: About $50 with tax + about $16 for materials
Result: To be determined, but I'm extremely pleased with the progress!

To the left are shelves that I removed

Now, I've DIY'd a few projects before but this one proved to be a little hairy. We sought help from Dale for construction advice and Andrew and Heather for furniture refinishing advice. We put our heads together and came up with an overhaul plan: Add legs to raise it up for the 5'11" and 6'3" parents, fill in the gaps with wood glue and use Annie Sloan chalk paint to make the design rustic looking.

Like many DIY tasks, step one - adding legs - proved to be more difficult than we'd anticipated. Props to Dale and Jerome who visited Lowe's twice to get the right tools for the job. I appreciate them working in the 60-degree weather and in the 25-degree weather two weeks later to complete the cabinet. I wasn't involved in this part of the process, but I know they went through several pieces of broken wood over several hours to attach the legs to this little booger. Oh, and some type of saw was involved.

Andrew and Heather provided some great construction help, too. After all, they've built furniture for heaven's sake! The most helpful advice they gave me, however, was to rub a tiny amount of Vaseline on the edges of the piece so the paint sands down easier when it's time to distress it. Let me tell you - it worked like a charm.

Here are those doggone legs. Oh the trouble my family went through just to attach these creatures!

This was taken after I applied two coats of Annie Sloan's Old White chalk paint. Love the texture and how it really looks rustic, even before chipping away and distressing the paint.

Now for the fun part: Sanding and sealing with wax. I enjoy the sanding step because that's when the piece starts to take on a life of its own. You can sand it according to your preference. I sanded this one down quite a bit today and went a little overboard with the edges on purpose to really rough it up. I took some keys to the top of it and had a hayday beating it up a little, too.

I'm very pleased with the look so far and can't wait to finish it up. Next step: Attaching the doors and finding some cute but boyish knobs to dress it up a little.

Finally, I need to figure out what to do with the tricky inside panels. Paint? Wallpaper? Mod podge? I'm open to ideas here, so hit me up!