A wise sign once said, "Reduce..., Reuse..., ecyc e". Fine words to live by!

The cupboard you see was this 🤏close to ending up in the trash. Well, maybe not trash but taken apart and used as firewood. It would have been a shame as someone had meticulously handcrafted it 100 something years ago! That´s when I stepped in and gave a new life to this old piece of furniture by transforming it into a coffee/wine station for the kitchen! Doing so I greatly improved the storage and made it look pretty cool actually. What do you think?

The final design has a space on the left for all the coffee goodies and on the right, you find a wine station. AM on the left, PM on the right!😉 Under them, there are 4 big and 2 smaller drawers for storage.

Now, if you prefer more of a visual presentation I invite you to watch the video. It gives a great overview.

Let´s get started!

PS: I would love to hear your thoughts on this project. If you liked it maybe give it a vote in the Trash to Treasure 2021 Contest. Thanks!

Step 1: Things Needed

This project in terms of woodworking was pretty simple.

I decided to add 4 drawers into the cupboard. As the furniture was pretty crooked in every direction it made sense to build boxes for the drawers and install these boxes inside the cupboard. It would have been a pain trying to fit new drawers inside there otherwise.

I used:

12 mm Birch plywood for the boxes and drawers
6 mm Birch plywood for the back of the boxes
Drawer slides
Woodscrews 3x40mm
Furniture paint
Electrical components - switch, wires, light bulbs with sockets, extension cord, cord installation clamps.
Two old vases as light shades

Tools:

Cordless drill
Plunge saw (with a guide)
Painting tools
Electrical tools

Step 2: The Doors

I planned on reusing the doors as drawer faces so the first step I did was to remove the doors. Doing so I also removed any hardware or metal that would get in the way of the circular saw. These doors were then cut a bit oversized to be later trimmed to exact measurement when installing the drawers.

The finish on the doors looked okay but one of them had some sort of goo on it that required sanding. And so I sanded not knowing if I could get them to match with the rest of the cupboard later. I am not going to pretend that I knew what I was doing but I think I got lucky. I decided to refinish the doors with the fanciest finish I had - Shellac. It seemed to be quite a bit lighter on the first coat but after three or so coats it kind of became indistinguishable from the rest of the furniture.

Step 3: Boxes and Drawers

As I explained in the Kitchen With Many Cool Features project my process for building boxes and drawers is pretty simple. I just cut and screw together four walls and then add bottom/back also with screws. I use 12 mm plywood, long thin screws and no glue. Pretty simple!

In my case, the boxes were half the height of the cupboard door opening. The drawers were again half of that minus some room for clearance.

I also gave everything two coats of furniture paint.

Step 4: Installing the Drawers

The first thing I did before installing the drawers was to paint all the visible faces on the inside of the cupboard. This would leave a nice contrast between the inside and outside of the cupboard. I had to add two spacer blocks to lift the boxes up a bit so that the bottom drawers could open. 18 mm plywood was perfect for that task.

Then I just installed the boxes and attached them without sparing screws. This added quite a bit of strength to the whole cupboard as well as its joinery had become loose over time. The screws were not going to be visible anyway so I was not worried.

The somewhat tricky part was installing the drawer faces. I had cut them oversized so I had to trim them on spot. I pretty much just tried getting the size right, held it against the drawer trying not to move it while attaching with several screws from the inside of the drawer. It worked nicely and all the drawers move freely.

I also reinstalled two shelves on top of the boxes to help match the look. Each drawer also got a little knob.

Step 5: Electrical

I started this step by drilling holes in two glass vases that were going to be used as lampshades. I had never drilled holes in a glass before so it was kind of an experiment for me. It turned out nice though. I held the vase under running water when drilling. This helped to cool the glass and remove debris. Not pressing too hard on the bit was important as well.

The electrical part itself was pretty simple. I added lights to both sides and an outlet on the left side for the coffee- grinder and machine. Of course, the lights had to have a switch as well. The only difficult part was the fact that I was using some (modern) retro cables that were covered with cloth. It turned out to be quite a task feeding these wires through holes and connecting them to sockets and the switch. Eventually, I amangaed it nicely. The switch itself is hidden from the view but still easily accessible.

Step 6: That´s It!

And with that, I called the project done. I am pretty happy with how it turned out and the customer (my parents) were pleased with the results as well. Hopefully, this beautiful piece of furniture will last another 100 years (or more)!

What are your thoughts on this project? Would you have done something differently?

If you liked it maybe give it a vote in the Trash to Treasure 2021 Contest. Thanks!

Take care

Andu

Let´s get started!