New Furniture: Revisited

Remember this custom piece of furniture that my father-in-law made for me?? It is wonderful and I still LOVE it! However, it had some structural issues we needed to address. The legs were simply too unstable for the weight of the top, especially when I had it loaded down with stuff. I originally used to for office supplies since our other house didn’t have an office but now I have it in our craft/hobby room. It was one of those projects I knew needed to be done but I just kept putting it off; with the girls around it, though I couldn’t procrastinate any longer. It was so unstable that we took the legs off completely in fear that it would fall on the girls. They use this craft room just as much as I do so it NEEDED to be extra sturdy!!
In all honesty, I didn’t really know how we were going to fix it. A few not-so-pleasant and ugly options crossed my mind such as just adding some of these:

Yuck! I just couldn’t do that to this beautiful piece!
I finally got around to brainstorming and decided that Victorian trim work would be the best option. Luckily, that same F-I-L used to make and sell Victorian trim work so he has TONS of stuff on hand and patterns for me to choose from. I also took this opportunity to spruce it up a bit and make it a bit more “frilly.”
He had some simple corbels in his stock pile. They did not really have the scroll pattern I was originally wanting but they were free and they fit so I took it! It was a bit of an ordeal trying to figure out how to get them attached to the legs and the cabinet without going through the drawer above and making sure that the screw that went from the leg to the cabinet was secure. Eventually, he was able to find something called a bushing to work.

I had no idea what that was until yesterday! lol Basically works like a drywall screw but for wood and metal. I learn several things with every project!!
Anyways, we got the corbels on and then I was able to paint them to match. Thank goodness I remembered the paint name from 2 years ago!!

I was kind of  glad we decided to tackle this project because there were spots that needed touch up painting that I was able to finally get to. I considered repainting the whole thing but I was able to just do some touch up and it turned out fine.

Once those were finished I added the decorative wood accents to the doors. I drew out where the center was and used wood glue to attach them. (I had to do some sanding since these pieces don’t come as smoothly as you would think).

I also don’t have any wood clamps (another item on my wish list) so I had to improvise.

After the glue and paint dried, here’s how the doors turned out.

I thought they looked great but then I decided that the drawers were too plain. Off to the hardware store I went AGAIN! I decided that the best option was to add something behind the knobs so I got some oval shaped appliques that were similar to the ones on the doors and drilled a hole in the center.

Problem # 5000 (or so it seemed) then arose. After I got the appliques painted I went to put them on the drawer and realized that the screw was too short to go through the drawer, the applique, and then the knob. grrrrrrrrr. I stared at this cabinet in disbelief, brainstorming what to do next and how to rig this one up! Luckily I have a wonderful husband that agreed to go BACK to the hardware store for me and get longer screws. (I can only imagine what the guy working at ACE thought of him coming in with a crystal knob and frilly applique looking for a screw to fit lol). Anyways, the screw he got was a little too long and I was afraid I would have to go BACK and get screws that were just 1/4” shorter. How annoying!!!

One of my biggest pet peeves is working on a project and being forced to stop because you don’t have the right supplies and you cant go to the store because it closes early/I am up too late so no store is possibly open/I have the kids with me and taking them to the hardware store AGAIN would be pushing my luck and they would just act like wild animals/or something of the sort. Patience is not one of my virtues!

I guess this kind of thing forces me to get creative because I was able to make it work and get them all to fit together nicely. Disaster averted! lol Here are the drawers:

Yay! It is all complete and I was able to refill it with all of my scrap fabric, notions, and patterns.

Let me just say that it is not budging! It is so sturdy and not going anywhere!!

I still love this cabinet and I absolutely love it in my craft room!!