The Refinishing Thing

 So I bought this nifty really old handmade sewing cabinet from Karen, who said her great-grandfather made it!  This is what I love to find, things that are handmade SO well that they've stood the test of time but have seen better days, and are just waiting for a little TLC!  My plan is to take the end pieces right down to bare wood and stain them, no small feat as it turns out because Karen's great-grandfather was apparently a man who loved the varnish.  A lot.  This is not something I normally do, it takes a lot of time and elbow grease, even with my trusty orbital sander, but I have a vision. The front and back lids I will paint.  Today I took it apart and sanded the lids and one end, which is all I could do before the mosquitos found me and I packed it in for the night.





After some consideration, I decided to leave the inside of the cabinet untouched (except for the insides of the lids).  It has a nifty little sliding compartment for holding miscellaneous doodads, which is very cool.  And of course the inside has not had the wear and tear that the outside has been subjected to over the years, so other than the fact that it won't go with the outside color-wise, it's in really good condition.  It'll be kind of a tribute to Karen's great-grandfather's craftsmanship, a little piece of history.

The hinges are currently soaking in hot water and OxyClean, which is just magical stuff.  I use it to get years of crud off old buttons, leaving them nice and clean even in the crevices.  I have no idea what color these hinges were originally, but at this point I'm thinking they'll end up flat black.  Maybe.  That's the plan at the moment, but in the immortal lyrics of Velvet Goldmine, Everything is Subject to Change.