The Old Cabinet

This old cabinet has been sitting in my rumpus for what must be 5+ years!  I bought it off Trademe for $50 from memory, with a view to doing it up.  It's half stripped, but the stripping of the inside was going to be a mission, so think I just kept putting it off and putting it off until it just sort of started getting used as is.  

For the past few months, I have been searching Trademe and other sales for a cabinet for the lounge to house our glassware without success, as I haven't found one I like more than what I believe this would look like finished (well not within a price range I can afford anyway).   So, I've started in on it again.  Most of the paint inside is now stripped away and the wood (Rimu) is just lovely.  Just the cracks and joins to go, then a good sand down and a bit of wood filler in some spots and over nail holes, before the finishing begins.

In the process of removing paint, I found a mark inside at the top back panel, with the makers initials and the date '1928', so wrapped I really do have a lovely old piece of furniture to restore.  It came partially disassembled, so had various bits and pieces in the drawer.  I still have 2 pieces that I can't work out any possible location for, but that may come to light the further I work on it.

I have to go and try and find appropriate hardware for the hinges and latches to the doors and a drawer handle that fit with the age of this piece and then some glass for the front panel and the doors.  Can't wait to see what it looks like finished.

Will post photos as it comes along.

Not Much Blogging

So as you would have seen, not much blogging went on here in 2013.  Despite us thinking it was going to be a great year for our family, for the better part, it was not.  Both financial issues and some pretty serious personal situations arose, none of which needed to be shared publicly, so I didn't really post anything.

Bit sad really seeing as we did have a few amazing things happen at the beginning of the year, when Taryn went to the US for the World Robotics Championships is California.  This was followed very quickly by an all expenses paid trip to China!  She had a blast.

We however, were at home dealing with one of the issues and so blogging was not high priority.  I hope to get around to posting at least some of the photos and info from her trips, but if not, it will at least get into the scrapbooks.

We are still dealing with one or two of the more personal/private issues and we know it will all get a lot worse before it gets better, so not presently expecting to do much blogging in 2014, but in the background we will be working hard to sort our issues and move on.  This brings me to my word for 2014: 'RESTORE'  It covers so many different aspects of what we will need to go through this year - healing, mending, repairing, etc, etc so it was a good fit.

On that note, I am looking forward to a much better 2014 and although we know there is a fair bit of hard work ahead of us for the first half of this year, we know it will all be worth it and hopefully in the second half of this year we will reap the rewards from our efforts.

I wish you all the very best of everything for 2014!