Armoire Turned Craft Chest

CarolynDeline
by CarolynDeline
We found this antique clothes armoire at an estate sale for $5.00. After it sitting in my basement for almost a year, I decided to turn it into a craft cabinet. Not that I need one, I have a whole craft room, but I was sure someone would love it.
Made my own chalk paint for this project with 1/3 cup plaster of paris and 1/3 cup water mixed well, and then added to 1 1/2 cups regular latex paint. I have made it thinner, but like the thicker homemade chalk paint. No need to sand the wood, just paint on. Then I sanded it, made it look all distressed and added the stencils, which I created in a software program, and cut out of sign vinyl.
Here is the chest before. Pretty plain and simple, but solid wood
And here it is after...tons of storage space. I added shelves I got curbside from a laminate computer desk out to the garbage and covered them with mactac
Added some pegboard to the insides of the doors and some dollar store baskets, as well as cork board for pinning things to
Using shelf hooks and dowel, made some ribbon racks, which also work well for storing paper punches
Hooks on the pegboard for various items
It wasn't a very tall unit, so you can even store some baskets on top
Made my own stencil and painted some crafty words on the front
Curbside handles repainted
This was such a fun and easy project. I'm no carpenter, but I did all the cutting of pegboard and screwing in of everything myself. I threw it on a selling site and it sold right away!
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  • Penny Buxkler Penny Buxkler on Mar 29, 2016
    What an amazing awesome job you did. I have an antique armoire that has no purpose in my home but taking up space. Can you please let me know how you installed the peg board? I know it needs some space behind it to put the hooks in. Thank you for this wonderful inspiration!!!
  • Gracie Strange Freeman Gracie Strange Freeman on Mar 31, 2016
    Im thinking of making mine into that much needed pantry, and storage for extra pots and pans and gadgets I will be painting it white. What do you think of that idea. I bought one of these closets actually two of them.
  • Lainey Howell Lainey Howell on Apr 02, 2016
    What is mactac? I have an armoire I brought back from England which is in the garage, serving as a catch-all. It would be wonderful converted into something useful. When you installed the shelves, what kind of support system did you use? Brackets, cleats, 1x4s? I wouldn't want to add something that might go through the exterior. Thanks for any input. You did a very creative conversion!
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