Garage Sale Conversions
Successfully Changing
TV & Gun Cabinets Into
Furnishings You Can Use
Ahhh garage sales. Who can resist
them? There’s no telling what
lurks in the dark depths of your
neighbor’s garage. Treasures of all
kinds await the savvy shopper. When
we moved into a new home, we
needed a television stand and my
daughter needed a curio cabinet. I
knew we weren’t going to be in this
home long, so I didn’t want to buy expensive furniture pieces that might not work in another house. Instead of heading to the furniture store, I just woke up early one Saturday morning and with cash and coffee in hand, I set out to find a fill in for a television stand and a curio cabinet.
A $5 furniture find
Fortunately, my search didn’t take long. I found the television stand I was looking for at a church bazaar. It was an old television console with doors that was the kind that were popular in the 70’s: Big, dark, and Spanish-looking. I figured that if I didn’t like it, I could use it as a hall console or put it in my own garage sale. I liked the fact that it had doors, too, because the VCR and DVD could be hidden there. The TV had already been conveniently taken out of it, so that step was already accomplished. I paid the price they asked with no question: $5. Now the search was on for a curio cabinet.
After driving through several neighborhoods, I spotted a garage sale with some furniture and the gun cabinet I was looking for. They wanted $50 for it. I offered $25, which I thought was fair (it was a garage sale, after all), but they wouldn’t bite. So I offered $35 (my top price). Sold. It was a standard one-door gun cabinet with two doors below. It had a fruitwood finish, but that was going to get a coat of crackle paint, so the finish didn’t matter. It was all wood and in good shape, so I guess the $35 wasn’t too bad after all.
My entire day of furniture shopping rang in at only $40 for two pieces of furniture. Both pieces went directly into the garage where they would stay until their respective transformations. I remember showing my mother the television console in the garage and offering it to her after she said she needed a hall console table. But when she looked at it, she didn’t see it the enchilada red color that I saw or the pretty brass pulls. She saw a hideous Brady Bunch throwback. Instantly, the polite fairy waved a wand and my mother gave me the “oh I wouldn’t want to take that from you, I know how you need that TV stand.” But I could really tell how she thought there was no way this pig’s ear was going to turn into a silk purse. Was she ever surprised when she saw the transformation – and the regret showed on her face when she saw how beautifully it turned out.
True to its $5 cost, transforming the TV console was easy. All it required was a little sandpaper, paint, and new door pulls, and voila!, a new TV stand was revealed. And true to the gun cabinet’s much higher price tag, this piece of furniture took more muscle to wrestle it into its new curio cabinet identity.
Transforming a gun cabinet
To transform the gun cabinet, I first
sanded it down, primed it, and then
painted it enchilada red just like the
TV cabinet; (can you guess what my
favorite Tex-Mex plate is? And a side
of guac, please.). Then I applied a
crackle finish coat and then covered
it in a coat of golden ochre. Like
magic, the gold began to crackle
to reveal the red beneath.
I also purchased, cut, painted, and
attached a board to fit the bottom
of the inside of the gun case to
cover the gun butt openings, thus
creating a flat bottom shelf. The
fitting in the center of the cabinet
that held the gun barrels was taken
out. It was only held by two screws
at the back. Next, I purchased and
had glass shelves cut for about $20.
I drilled the inside of the cabinet for
shelf fittings and then installed the
shelves. A curio was born!
Reinvent furniture
Next time you need a piece of furniture and don’t want to make a major investment, consider converting a garage sale find. It’s amazing what you can do with new pulls, a coat of paint, and some elbow grease. In this area, it’s easy to find gun cabinets and it’s relatively easy to transform them into curio cabinets. If you want to get really fancy, you can even install a little light at the top of the cabinet and store crystal figures and items. The glass shelves will permit the light to go throughout the entire shelf. Just imagine how the crystal will sparkle under a nice white halogen light! I bet I’ve got you thinking already!
© 2007 Kathryn Weber, all rights reserved
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Kathryn Weber is the publisher of the Everydayclean.com Cleaning Calender, that calender that puts you in control of your home by ending the power struggle. For more information log on to http://tinyurl.com/d9rh5.
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©2001-2007 Kathryn Weber
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