Current project: Credenza Reborn

by April S Fields

This is a true story. In 1994, we moved to the lake. The house we bought was pretty rough around the edges having been used as a weekend retreat for several years and having been locked up and unused for several years before that. I'm not sure how many owners had it before we took it on, but apparently everytime it changed hands, old furniture was left behind.

In the basement, which had been finished in, there was a small back bedroom that had an old mattress and several odd tables of varying vintages. There was so much work to be done to the rest of the house I closed the door on this room and let it sit undisturbed for a few months.

One day I decided I needed a sofa table that could also double as a buffet. The dining room and living room were basically all one big rectangular space and I positioned the sofa to better delineate the two areas. I wanted a low cabinet that could back up to the sofa and face the dining table but I also wanted it to be able to hold my tablecloths and good flatware.

All that morning I thought about what I would go searching for, having already decided I'd give my favorite flea markets a first chance to see if there was something I could pick up for a song and then refinish myself. I pretty much knew what the dimensions should be, not too high, but wide enough to really be useful as storage. While finishing up my morning housework, I had a stack of folded out-of-season clothing I took downstairs to store in that extra bedroom, my mind still working on the list of parameters I'd use with which to find my treasure.

I opened the door and flipped on the switch, muttering to myself that what I needed was something about the height and width of that old cabinet over there. I paused. Blink blink.Yes, just about like that old cabinet...no...wait a minute...exactly like that old cabinet. Good grief, I thought to myself, that old cabinet is what I needed! Had I found my treasure in my own basement? I ran for the measuring tape.

Well, the size was perfect and it had two doors that opened to a space divided by a shelf. Perfect! Almost perfect. It was good heavy furniture with a pecan veneer but it had three ornate plastic molded panels on the front, ala 1970's Mediterranean style. I studied it with furrowed brow a moment, sucked my tooth and ran for a large flat screwdriver. With the smallest of effort those plastic panels gave up and popped off revealing clear flat surfaces underneath. At this point I knew this was going to work, so I scooted the whole thing into the garage and got busy.

I removed the dangly Mediterranean bobbly handles and sanded down the whole piece. Then I washed it down with a deglosser so the paint would stick. After that dried, I just happen to have three unfinished wooden ball knobs in my workshop so I added those and then I painted it with a grey latex paint and let that dry overnight. The next day I did a wash with thinned white latex and wiped it down to make it look old. Okay, it was already old, I wanted it to look even more old and weathered to go with my nautical decor. Done.

I'm not going to tell you how I got it upstairs, that's another tale. Suffice it to say, I did get it upstairs, by myself, and put it in place behind the sofa. Wow, talk about perfect; I could not have found a more perfect piece to turn into my dining credenza. It served us well in that spot for four years. When we moved into our present home on the lake, my something-from-nothing credenza fit right into our new dining room as though it had been designed especially for the space.

Which goes to prove you don't have to have a lot of money to make home. All you really need is a bit of vison and motivation. So, what wonderful new thing can you make from the old things you have gathering dust in your attic or basement, eh?

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