What you are about to see is one of the easiest, cheapest, customizable, modifiable, and stylish ways to turn a boring cabinet interior into a flawless extension of the hard work you have done and fabulous design choices that you have made to the outside of your cabinet and its surrounding space. This experiment turned out so well that my husband (yes, my husband) keeps suggesting different things around the house that we could use the same technique on!
Here is the newly-stained Black Cherry exterior of our cabinet with the original oak-colored interior. (Yes, we know that the outside base of the cabinet is also still oak-colored. I haven't decided what to do about that yet.) The interior is uninspiring and unattractive, yes?
Using only inspiration from a picture that I saw float by on my Pinterest feed one day, the cabinet now looks like this:
(Okay, and there's a sink installed now too, but ignore that for a minute!)
Here's what I did:
I walked into the fabric store with the measurements of my cabinet interior (side, back and bottom dimensions) and my color palette for the guest bathroom, and I found a coordinating fabric that would play nicely with both the wall color (Relaxed Navy blue), the cabinet exterior color (Black Cherry) and of course the desired feel of the space in mind. I chose a 100% Cotton, lightweight fabric that is typically used for quilting projects and that has a continuous pattern. This way, I could spend less money on yardage and use the full 43" width of the fabric, turning the fabric any way that I needed to during installation. I needed less than 3 yards; one for the back, one for the bottom, and another for both sides. The total cost was about $12 because the fabric was 30% off of $4.99/yard.
(Teaser: I have plans for the remnants of this fabric. Perhaps I will cover the light switch and outlet plates with it??)
Then I went to the Aisle of Adhesives and found a lot of different spray adhesive brands and types. I went with Elmer's brand because I am familiar with it and don't know a lot about spray adhesives. It cost $4, and I would probably have some left over for another project.
Back at home, I happen to have sewing tools and skills, so I knew to wash my fabric first and allow it to shrink up and bleed color as it pleased before working with it. I ironed the wrinkles out, then measured and cut the four pieces I needed with a rotary cutter using the cabinet measurements. I chose to leave about a 1/4" extra for each edge just in case I measured incorrectly or something ... Better to cut off the excess later than try to patch up any gaps later. Also, I had to measure the placement of the pipes and cut holes in the back piece of fabric so that it would slip over and fit around the pipes.
Time to install!
In order to get the sink and new counter top installed and make the bathroom functional again, I needed to get at least the back piece of fabric installed. It would be easier for me to maneuver inside of the cabinet without the sink hanging down in my face. We had to get the sink and counter top installed for our guests that were coming over later that evening!
Following the instructions on the can of spray adhesive and employing the extra hands of my always-helpful husband, I sprayed adhesive on the entire right side of the back cabinet wall. Then, starting in the upper right corner, I began sticking the wrong side of the fabric to the sticky cabinet, lining up the right edge of the fabric with the right edge of the cabinet back, smoothing wrinkles as I went down. With the right side glued, I kept holding the loose fabric in my left hand and kept pressing the fabric to be glued with my right hand, moving from right to left, smoothing wrinkles as I went. When I got to the pipes, I slipped the holes over them and carefully fit the fabric around them. Once the entire right half was glued, I sprayed adhesive on the rest of the back wall and continued pressing the fabric, right to left, until the entire back side was lined.
This was so easy and was accomplished so quickly that I just sat there for a few minutes, envying how nice it looked. I had expected something to go wrong ... fabric to peel off after pressing it because the glue wasn't good enough, or fabric getting stuck in the wrong place because the glue was too good, etc. But none of that happened and nothing else got in our way. It.was.that.simple.
And pretty! Look at the difference...
And then, just as I was about to do my little dance for yet another successful DIY effort, my husband pushed me aside and began installing the sink and counter top for our incoming guests.
We stumbled upon our new counter top in the Lowe's Reduced Price section for almost 50% less than retail. It's a small, 36" marble counter top that came with a busted marble backsplash. We didn't want the backsplash anyway because we intend to install a glass and stone backsplash by hand. Score! That allowed us to increase our budget for fixtures, so I got the Venetian Bronze faucet that I really wanted!
Old counter top with standard fixtures and its own backsplash:
New counter top, sink, faucet, drain stopper:
The next day, I finished the cabinet interior by applying the same fabric to the sides and bottom. Have I mentioned how ridiculously easy it is to do this?? I was done in about 15 minutes.
Lesson #8: Wear latex gloves to protect your fingers from spray adhesive.
I was scraping adhesive off of my fingernails for hours afterward. It was annoying. That's really the only thing that I would have done differently with this project.
And now, the moment I am sure you have been waiting tirelessly for ...
My husband finished up the cabinet doors that I sanded and stained in a previous post, added the new knobs I picked out, and re-attached them to the cabinet.
Venetian Bronze cabinet knobs and shiny Black Cherry finish on the cabinet:
This concludes the big reveal on our cabinet, sink and counter top! Next, I'll be showing you how we created a custom frame for the mirror at a very affordable cost.
But just in case you missed the awesomeness of my fabric-interior cabinet, here it is again:
YAY!
No comments:
Post a Comment