The Edison Record Cabinet

I wanted to go into the transformation of the Edison record cabinet a bit more, since I only shared the "after" photos in my last post.

I acquired this piece from a woman I met off of Craig's List. I bought a mirror from her and as we exchanged, she mentioned she had several other pieces at her home she was looking to offload.

At the time, the owner was using this as a night stand, which I thought was rather clever. Once it came time for me to work on it, I imagined it as a coffee/tea/drink station. The top opens up to reveal to gorgeous Edison logo inside.

The body had such amazing texture from the original finish cracking over the years. I've learned that this is called "gatoring" or an "alligator" finish.

Now normally I would have used Chalk Paint® by Annie Sloan on this in a heartbeat, but I wanted to see what Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint would do to a piece like this. I wasn't 100% sure if it would stick on its own, so I mixed up some Shutter Gray with the bonding agent.

I thought Shutter Gray would look lovely up against the original crystal knob on the front.

Some folks find the mixing aspect of milk paint to be tedious and would prefer to open a can and just have at it. I like having to prepare my milk paint by hand for several reasons:

1. It helps me connect more with the painting process. It's kind of like cooking from scratch vs. preparing boxed food. You feel more connected to the process if you have to do it from scratch. It does take a bit more time, but it's a more organic process, much more similar to what was done in the past to paint pieces.

2. I have total control over the thickness of my paint, the colors, its adhesion (well, at least when I add bonding agent or forgo using it), and how well it's mixed. You can't do that with canned paint. There are so many options that you can use depending on what you need.

3. It gives you that old world feel to a piece that can't be replicated with any other kind of paint. Milk paint soaks in like none other and it almost acts as a color stain rather than paint. I find that I can put on 3 coats of milk paint and my surface still feels like wood as opposed to 3 coats of any other kind of paint that feels and looks like I have 3 coats on. (Does that make sense?)

Disclaimer - I know that milk paint is not the "catch-all" paint and won't work for every project, but it's an excellent option to have in your arsenal of paint products.

So after 3 coats of Shutter Gray and an application of furniture wax, the Edison cabinet turned out splendidly!

I know you've already seen these photos, so I'll go fast. I staged this in my booth at Morgantown Market with a pewter tray, an ironstone pitcher, some butter pats, milk bottles with wheat bunches, and a little metal bell.