My $40 Antique Cabinet & How I Styled It

We have a thrift store down the street from us.  The man who owns it buys his stuff from storage unit auctions.  Sometimes he has good furniture and other times it's questionable.  He's only open Saturday and Sunday,  so I always look as we pass by on our way to run errands.  For 3 weekends (May- June 2025) I admired a desk he had.   On the forth weekend we stopped so I could have a closer look.  Well the desk, although nice, wasn't what I wanted.  But as I was walking back to the car I saw this...

He had it marked down from $150 to $40. What you can't see in the photo is the damage; we had some strong winds earlier on that day and she was blown over.  The glass broke and she had some cracks, but I knew immediately that DH could fix her and I bought her on the spot.  We drove home,  unloaded the groceries, DH grabbed his truck and picked her up. 

For a little over a month she's sat in the garage waiting while the new garage/workshop was built.  DH was also itching to fix her, HA!  But it would be a few more months and finally in November DH was able to. 

He removed the door first and started working on that, gluing, clamping, then replacing the glass. 

At first we thought he was going to have to repair one of the back legs, but upon further inspection he didn't have to. 

The top was warping.  Which left us with 2 choices: 

1. Replace the top - which would involve stripping the whole thing and re-staining 
2. Leave it as is, but secure it to stop it from warping further. 

I opted for #2!

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He wiped her down and applied Restore-a-finish.  This was the first time we used this product and boy were we impressed with the results!  Have you ever used Restore-a-finish?

Once dry we brought her in...And here she is!  She holds all my chamber pots and few other things. 

(wall) architectural element, round brass wall hanging was my mommas, (right) brown bowl is a spittoon, a child's chamber pot sits on top, inside the chamber pot is a collection of vintage red mini books, Qual candle snuffer , mini cloche w/pennies (a nod to the 243yr of the penny), furniture leg used as a candle holder.

(center 1st shelf) my maternal grandma's pitcher and wash basin, (2nd shelf) antique insulators, (3rd shelf inside the center chamber pot) very large antique pestle 

all my chamber pots and pots

Not to bad looking for a $40 find,huh?

until next time, ❤ Tina