Not enough kitchen storage? Make some!

Husband and I just moved into the most charming little apartment you've ever seen.  And when I say little, I really mean teensy tiny.  We live in a 100 year old house that was converted into 3 apartments.. pretty cool huh?  It has all the original decorative molding around all the windows and doors and is just so quaint I can hardly stand it.  With all this charm however, came a lack of storage space, which led me to these next two projects.

I have a total of one decent sized cupboard and then another three that are tiny and too tall for me to reach without a stool.  Quite a dilemma.  So, I decided to get creative and build myself my own "pantry" out of an old armoire-ish cupboard so that I could use my good cupboard for as many dishes as I could possibly squeeze in there.

I started with this little beauty.  My grandma and grandpa bought this used at a garage sale when they first got married. It then got passed down to my aunt and uncle, who in turn wanted to get rid of it so I went along and snatched it up.  All I saw was potential :)

First step, start sanding like a mad woman. Since this one was already chipped and in poor condition, it didn't take me long to get a smooth surface and remove any varnish that was left. 

Next I painted it with a good quality antique-white paint.  It took three coats to cover up that dark wood, but it was well worth it (after I swore a few times when two coats wasn't enough.) 

 Next, I grabbed a dark wood stain that I used for another project (coming soon) and grabbed a sponge brush.  I filled all the cracks and crevices with stain and then with some old torn up t-shirts, I simply started rubbing it all off again, leaving a little bit deep in the cracks.  For the main surfaces (without cracks) I used my rag that was already covered in the stain that I wiped off and just rubbed that all over the surface.  Do this to your entire cabinet.

You can see in this picture that I've done the top half of the door

Then I let it dry for a few hours.  Now, since I used a stain, It doesn't dry very well when you put it on top of paint instead of dry wood that will just soak up the color.  I had to put a clear varnish coating over the top to seal everything in place.  This was the trickiest step.  The varnish moves the stain around if you're not careful, so try not to drag it around too much.  I tried to just dab the varnish in the cracks as much as possible, but remember not to leave any bubbles because what you see is what you get and the bubbles will dry in place if you leave them.

Last, I just bought some new hardware for the handles and VOILA!  My own pantry!

(Sorry about the coloring below.  I forgot to take a full picture until late at night so I couldn't use natural light)

Ta DUM!