As I mentioned here I am no longer doing the whole “resale/flea market” thing. I am still working on a few projects here and there because it is what I love to do!

This piece is one I bought eons ago and has sat in my garage waiting on inspiration and time.

I bought it and the matching chest of drawers at a barn auction. Yes, it had been sitting in a barn…yes, I could tell it had been infested with mice at one time. No, I was not expecting to find two mouse carcasses while cleaning it. GAG!!!!

The ONLY way I have found to rid old furniture of old furniture smells (mice, cigarettes, moth balls, etc) is to first scrub with ammonia and then vinegar (do not do them at the same time!). Sometimes I will spray the inside of the piece with diluted vinegar and just let it dry. If that doesn’t do it, then I suggest you prime and paint the inside of the drawers. Fortunately, the heavy duty cleaning on this piece worked and I did not have to paint the drawers!

The top and drawer fronts are cherry veneer. The veneer was in pretty good shape and really just needed to be stripped and oiled…I used THIS process to strip the old finish. Tried and true! I know I link to this tutorial a lot, but it works!

After stripping the veneers, I applied three coats of tung oil finish and chalk painted and distressed the cabinet!

The hardware was in pretty good condition…just icky. So I primed them with metal primer and painted them with flat black paint.

AGAIN, another example of how a very few dollars and some elbow grease can turn the ickiest piece into something pretty awesome!

While I had the “farmhouse white” chalk paint mixed up I decided to give some old frames a little makeover.

When I visited my uncle this summer he gave me two old framed portraits of my great-great grandmother and my great-great-great grandmother.

They do tend to be on the “goulish” side…but I NEVER turn down family heirlooms. When he offered me THIS china cabinet….

…I knew it wasn’t “my style” but as I said, heirlooms trump everything. So I made a few changes to make it a little more appealing…I removed the red paper on the back, added glass shelves and cabinet lighting. Then I filled it with the great’s and grand’s china…it is what it is…and heirloom piece filled with heirlooms.

I decided I might be able to make the portraits a little less “goulish” by painting the frames…they were just so “heavy and dark.”