A Lucketts Green Cabinet Makeover

If you're like me, you see potential in the roughest and downright ugliest of pieces. If you don't, then hopefully this transformation will help you look beyond surfaces that are less than perfect! The subject of this furniture makeover is a cute retro-style cabinet with glass doors.

This piece was purchased from the same folks that owned my oak washstand.

The couple that was selling it had a few pieces that weren't uploaded to Craig's List yet and I was able to swoop in and scoop it up before anyone had a chance!

As you can see, it was in pretty sad condition.

The inside of the cabinets had lots of chipping paint, so I scraped them down (after doing a lead test) and smoothed everything out as best I could.

It looked a bit scary at first,

but I had a plan!

I broke out my can of primer and sealed in the stains and water damage. Plus, the cabinet had a bit of a musty smell so the primer took care of that too.

After priming, I mixed up some of Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in Farmhouse White and painted the inside.

This is after one coat of milk paint.

It took 2 coats total, plus the primer to get full coverage. I've heard that priming helps to reduce the number of coats of white you need to apply to get full coverage, and I definitely found that to be true!

After the inside was taken care of, I mixed up some Lucketts Green.

This color is named after the outside of the Old Lucketts General Store where the Miss Mustard Seed (Marian Parsons) was a vendor for a bit.

It's the perfect soft green that has a bit of a 1950's feel, which suited my piece perfectly!

Lucketts Green is really fun to mix because the powder is actually yellow right out of the package. It doesn't turn green until water hits the pigments. It's kind of like a fun little science experiment every time I use it.

After a few coats, the piece was looking SO much better!

After applying milk paint, I needed to turn my attention to the glass in the doors. One pane was completely broken and the other had so much crusty old paint and a few stickers on it that it wasn't worth cleaning. Luckily, my local Ace Hardware cuts glass pieces to size and it was a perfect solution for my cabinet!

I try to support local hardware stores as often as I can. Not that I have anything against the larger stores, but now that I'm an entrepreneur, I want to try to shop as local as possible to help support small businesses.

It fit perfectly in the door frames and I tucked it in safely with some glazing points.

My cabinet had a lot of texture on it already from the rough original finish, so I decided to use Miss Mustard Seed's Tough Coat to seal the entire piece - inside and out. Tough Coat is the water-based sealer in the MMSMP line and I use it as a top coat for pieces that have a rough texture and chipping paint.

See what I mean?

I really liked the texture, but I wanted to make sure it didn't chip or crackle any further.

After sealing my piece, it was time to stage it for the grand reveal. I selected some pieces of ironstone that I had been accumulating over the past few weeks. I had the opportunity to go shopping with Marian when I traveled with her to New York and she gave me some tips on what to look for. (That, and I've been compulsively reading her ironstone blog posts!)

I used a pretty creamer pitcher with some wheat designs on the top,

a larger pitcher on top of a lovely platter,

serving platters, teacups, bowls, and saucers.

I thought the crackled texture of these pieces went perfectly with the outside of the cabinet!

Doesn't it look so pretty now?

I just loved how bright and happy this cabinet became.

There's lots of storage in this piece between the top cabinet, the drawers, and the bottom shelves.

I would say this piece went through quite the transformation, wouldn't you? Here's the progress again - before, during, and after.

I hope you feel encouraged to look beyond the current state of a "scary" piece and will try to see what it could be with a few coats of paint and some elbow grease!