Scavenger Chic

Kitchen Cabinet Door Makes a Comeback

• By Joan
• March 31, 2019
• 5 Comments

Last year we had our cabinets refaced.  The boxes on the cabinets were fine but it was time for an update.  During the process they give you totally new doors, new drawers and drawer fronts and give a whole new face to the existing cabinets.  

I couldn’t resist scavenging a few of the old cabinet doors off of the trash pile.

The cabinet doors were original to our 30 year old house, starting out as oak doors.  They still  are oak but about 10 years ago, when they started to fade and look kinda shabby I took the sander to them and gave all the cabinets a few coats of Varathane, the stain and poly that’s all in one step.  At the time we had two kids in college so the fix was supposed to  be temporary until we could afford to replace the cabinets. As I said, that was 10 years ago.

For this project I using the back of the cabinet door.  I liked this side better for my new work of art since it had a built in frame.

Sand well, to give your new creation a little tooth to adhere to.

I’m experimenting a little with this project trying to give it an old world look.

I mixed up a little plaster and applied it to the center of my cabinet door.  When I noticed it was going on a little too smoothly, I purposely made the little gouges and piled it up just a bit in other areas. Just trying to add a little texture.

Feel free to use spackling  compound which takes a little longer to dry.  I would have used the spackle too but my tub is at my son’s house.  Use what you have.

From The Graphics Fairy, I found this corinthian column artwork.  The Graphics Fairy also has the Doric Column if you’re interested in doing a matching set of artwork.

Enlarge the column to fit inside the cabinet door, mine is 19×12.  

 Just like the tulip catalog artwork last week I’m once again printing my graphic out on tissue paper.  Tissue paper will allow some of the plaster texture to shine through.

Tissue paper by itself is too thin to print on by itself.  You can solve this problem by wrapping printer paper with the tissue paper, using tape to secure. Iron the tissue paper first to get rid of any major wrinkles.

A 19×12 image will print out on 4 sheets of paper.

Trimming the edges of your printouts will separate the tissue paper from the printer paper.

I’m ready to start painting and the plaster isn’t quite dry.  Hairdryers are great for impatient people.

And now for the rest of my supplies, an assortment of chalk paint…celery, white, linen and black, spray adhesive and a sad little chippy brush.

You can actually leave out the celery color, I used it but it wasn’t very noticeable.

Start with the black, lightly painting the frame and the edges of the plaster.

Use a dry brush lightly skimming the surface of the plaster.  This is where the sad little chippy brush works perfectly, since it has lost many of it’s bristles it no longer holds a lot of paint, perfect.

Do the same with the linen…

…and the white.   With each new layer allow some of the previous layer to show through. Let the paint dry between layers but it shouldn’t take too long if you’re using chalk paint and dry brushing.

Can you envision an entire wall with this treatment?  Sort of like Venetian Plaster, or maybe a plaster fresco, though you may want to complete the finish with wax.

Use the spray adhesive to attach the column to the door.  Use your fingers to push the tissue paper into all the grooves.  You can also use modpodge, again, use what you have.

You can still see the edges of the tissue paper but nothing a little more chalk paint can’t cover up.  A little black, a little linen, a little white…

I even added a little, very little, paint over top of the printout.

What better way to show a before and after than using another one of the cabinet doors.

This is probably a better picture of the tissue paper edges.

Attach a hanger and you have inexpensive artwork.

Have a great week, stay inspired.

Shared at Talk of the Town

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