How to Makeover a Cabinet

This thing of beauty was sitting in our shed when we starting renting our place.

I knew it had potential, but I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to do with it until this summer. Browsing photos on Pinterest sparked my craftiness, and I kicked it into gear this summer.

I sanded the entire cabinet and painted it with a coat (or two?) of white paint with primer in it. That combo paint is awesome and saved so much time! (Though I’ve heard it doesn’t work so well with darker color paint.) This is the kind I used:

Then I distressed it. Not as glamorous as it sounds or as beautiful as the pieces you’ll get from professionals and pay hundreds for, but hey, who cares, right? I just used some sandpaper to rough all the edges and scrape some areas around the cabinet to make it a little less perfect. Sandpaper sucks, by the way. It totally tore up my hands.

I was on the hunt for awhile trying to find exactly what I wanted to cover the inside with. I didn’t just want to paint it white; it needed some pattern and pizzaz. I was going to use scrapbook paper – glad I didn’t go that route. It would have been too frustrating and expensive. I saw on Pinterest where someone used wrapping paper – genius. With one trip to the Hallmark store, I scored some beautiful paper and got more than enough so I didn’t freak out about running out of materials.

It took me a couple of nights of measuring, cutting, and Mod Podging the paper as perfectly as possible into each area. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked with Mod Podge, so I got a little frustrated. Once I laid the paper and painted over it to seal it on, parts of the paper crinkled. However, they dried flat. Yay! I also cut more than needed for each section and then used a really sharp box cutter to cut around the edges.

Here’s the final product. I am so happy with the way it turned out!

For the most part, this was an easy project. The key is to score a great piece to work with and fixing it up to make it your own and giving it a new life. This project cost me a total of about $15!

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