I am more and more convinced that there is nothing a person can’t do
with the right amount of spray paint.
I am well on my way to testing the theory.
This cabinet was the first “real” piece of furniture that Grandpa and I bought. We bought it at a local furniture store and paid $50 a month for one year until it was ours. It became the home of my “1960’s” china from ZCMI which was ringed with tiny daisies . . . completely in keeping with the hippy era in which we were married.
Everyone I knew had china. People “registered” for it and hoped that their friends would give them a “setting” or at least a plate or two. This cabinet became the home of anything breakable during our many years of small children until it was finally carried into the basement where its out-of-style light oak finish gathered dust.
Grandpa asked me what I wanted for Christmas.
We ask the question of each other every year but rarely want or need anything. This year I felt like Ralphie in The Christmas Story when I blurted out
” I would like the old cabinet brought upstairs and painted.”
There. I had said it.
I knew that Grandpa thought that one should never paint over perfectly good wood but I convinced him to give it a try. He couldn’t hide his further concern when he saw the paint I had chosen and its color . ( I THOUGHT IT WAS PERFECT ! ) It was a wonderful putty color which was right in the color family of the rest of the rooms where it might reside. The paint was a “textured” paint and turned out to be rough to the touch.
It took four cans.
As he always does with his projects, Grandpa took it into the garage, turned on his little heater and removed the glass, the doors and the hardware. He opened the garage door and sprayed away. I tried not to peek too often but I was more and more excited as the old oak disappeared and a “new” cabinet emerged.
Finally it was finished and dry. I carefully washed each panel of glass. Together, we put them back in place. Grandpa returned the original hardware to the front. We added large felt circle pads to the bottom of the cabinet since it would be sitting on a wood-like laminate floor rather than on carpet.
Thus, the cabinet I had always loved lived again.
The old “china” is still in a basement box.
Breakables don’t have to be inside of the cabinet to survive.
It was all I wanted for Christmas and as usual . . . Grandpa made my dream come true.
