Small Cabinet 4 Drawers

While walking the dog, I saw this cabinet been dumb to the garbage and it just looked at me and scream 'save me! I still have life in me to be useful and handy'.
So I picked it up after 2 days and toke it home to fix and reuse. It was very heavy to carry back with me, very heavy.The first thing I did was looking for any seen reason why this was thrown out (breaks, termites and so on...). I noticed that the handles are missing and looking at the bottom I saw that it was already poorly fixed once. So, time to do some proper fix and wood work on this poor thing.

Time:

It toke me almost 2 months of work but than again, I worked less than 30 minutes a day, for about 5 days and I had a few days off [as I was sick and could not work and some holidays I was busy doing other things.

Before

View of empty iron tea tableView of empty iron tea tableView of empty iron tea tableView of empty iron tea tableView of empty iron tea table

After

View of empty iron tea tableView of empty iron tea tableView of empty iron tea table

Step 1

The most basic thing to do: take it apart as much as possible and see what need to be done. I toke everything I could apart, started from the back, drawers (also toke apart as much as possible), removed the rails, removed the L connectors, the feet it was standing on. I thought to remove the front shelves but they seems to be ok and connected well, so I saved some time and left them connected.
look front after removing everythinglook from the side in angellook from the back after removing the back board

Step 2

Filling the holes.
As you can see in the pictures, there are lots of holes and gaps to close, this step toke the longest time as it was filling the holes/gaps, wait for it to dry, sanding, refilling if needed and it seems that I could always find a new hole or gap that I missed the previous time.

Step 3

Base Painting.
I painted all of it with a base paint (as I knew I will do some color pattern on top of the base but did not know which one yet). I painted the all body (inside and out) with white base paint.

Step 4

Painting.
Well I postpone as much as I could but it is time to decides, after awhile wondering and looking at the thing, I have decided to keep the red drawers red and the other 2 should have some some color - blue (would be nice). So the colors are set but the top of the cabinet is too white and boring. I need some shape that will break it and make it more fun. I played around with triangles and came up that 2 would be enough. I used a scootch to mark the triangles and a papernews to protect the white background.
front look, top covered with type and paper, exposing 2 triangles, one on each endside look, top covered with type and paper, showing exposed triangle, ready to be painted

Step 5

Drawers.
I toke apart as much as I could. As there was no handles to it, it was one less step to take it apart but it did have a board in front of it. I toke that apart, painted it and return and than I saw and thought that I must paint the top of the drawer to match the front board color. Sorry, no pictures for this step but it is a simple one.
Handles.
As the handles were missing, I thought at the beginning to just buy new one (what shape and color, I was not sure yet at the time) but than after the colors and shapes where picked and done, a thought came to me: 'I do wood work! I will create my own.'. I found a long rounded square wood and cut it to 2cm long. I made a 45 degrees cut to make it more comfortable to hold. Painted it in the colors of the drawers and connected it with a long screw.

Step 6

Putting it all back together.
One of the lovely and sad steps as it marks the end of the project. I returned the rails back to its original place, the back (who was in the great shape) back to its place and the drawers and walla... the finish project - I love it.

Conclusions & Remarks

  • * Picking up furniture from the street.
    There are few things to take into consideration when you do that: Why did the previous owner dumped it? broke? termites? got tired of it? I put the wood (or furniture) I find in 'quarantine' for 2-3 weeks and check for sawdust, holes and other things that hasn`t been on it before. If it cleans - it`s good to go.