Good Cabinet Luck

[Willa]

I have been casually looking for storage cabinets for my back porch, since I bought the house. I didn't want anything fancy, and at the lowest price possible.

A couple of days ago I stumbled onto a local shop's website, via their other listings on Kijiji. I could not believe my eyes when I saw this cabinet - originally priced at $ 760.00 marked down to $ 150.00. I was sure that they hadn't updated their site and that it was sold. Nope ! I bought it the next day, and it was delivered today. The seller claimed it was a consignment piece, and I guess it was at the end of their contract and they wanted it gone from the shop ASAP.

It has the original faux grain finish, and original hardware. It's a little dinged up from use but more than acceptable. When I saw it I worried that it was "too nice" for my purposes.

I suspect it might have been school or church furniture ? It's not fancy, but is decently built. The original tongue and groove backing boards were gone, replaced with particleboard. The numbers on the front seem to have been glued on a long time ago ? Anyhow - I have been searching for good cabinets for what seems like forever and it feels amazing to be able to finally stop.

I feel really lucky !

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[Manalto]

You are lucky - and shelves, too.

Nice find and well worth the wait.

[Willa]

You are lucky - and shelves, too.

Nice find and well worth the wait.

It will be hard to give up on the obsessive cabinet searching. Like it's hard to believe I can just stop that now.

I have enough cabinets for everywhere that I need cabinets. Unbelieveable !

[Lily left the valley]

Lovely.

What's the green bits in the lower shelf area?

[Willa]

What's the green bits in the lower shelf area?

Mysteriously, the lower board of the upper was painted green. I don't know if this may be a haphazard replacement for the original board - though it looks original - or what is up with that ? I wondered about that, too.

[Mick_VT]

Very, very easy - and not expensive to replace the beadboard if you wanted to. Great find!

[phil]

Those are nice. I really like the simple traditional design. I built my own cabinets and made the doors and face frames in a very similar manor and it was special because my dad passed on a lot of cabinet making info as we were building them. He later wasn't able to help which forced me to do more on my own. The panels interest me, are they actually one piece of wood or a glue up of several boards? nowadays we have plywood and I just used that but traditionally they really didn't have plywood so the panels needed to be somewhat free floating, else they would crack and buckle with humidity changes. nowadays they put these little rubber balls in the groove to captivate the panel and still allow movement but plywood doesn't stretch and shrink like solid panels. it looks like maybe maple frames I'm curious what the panels are made from?

I got a couple of free wooden boxes on the weekend. they came along with some white heavy canvas that is also old. I thought I'd use the canvas to recover chairs before the upholstery gores on. They are like huge blanket boxes, not so old but maybe 50's.. the maker used nice older 3/4 fir plywood and oak for all the edging. purely functional, they didn't even finish them and not really something you'd consider furniture but I thought I could put them on the front porch to use as storage or sit on, or in case I want to have a semi secure place for online purchase deliveries and things.

shelves in my pantry and bathroom cabinets are solid boards not plywood and I can see how someone might clean them up by just using plywood. that early plywood from about the 40's has thicker plys and they used better wood, the new stuff is not as good quality usually unless it's cabinet quality and expensive. even still a lot of even the good stuff has a very thin face veneer.

I guess they are early american, maybe from the 20's or so? and made before plywood was commonplace. They will fit in your home really well, Nice find Willa. the backs might have been pretty much like door skins. If you look where they sell plywood sometimes they use a single ply as a separator sheet which isn't usually for sale. It is just packing material so you can just ask for it sometimes.
That might replace or hide the back because it was usually a thin piece and they didn't usually go overboard with the backing. maybe it got broken up by closing the doors with too much in them. It might not have been tongue and groove stuff. maybe the nail holes would give you a clue as they probably would have tacked the back on and if it were T and G it would probably have equal spacing whereas maybe a panel would have somewhat random tacking.

[Gothichome]

Willa, nice jam cupboard. I don’t think it was built for institutional use, I suspect it was adapted for some kind of organized storage. It would look great in any Victorian kitchen or back room, just like were you have it. Now though, you’ll have to start canning.

[phil]

not near as old as what Willa has but I arranged to pick this sideboard up for free.
My grandparents used to have one so similar if not the same. as I recall it had some trim that was sort of an applied veneer, much like a decal. years ago my brother stripped the table and remember it loosing its decals then.

oddly I have a radio that is of the same cabinet style so it woud look great with it. almost like its the same maker or something . I think its maple, maybe from about the 40's or so I'm guessing. Itll give a little more cupboard space and tie in well I think... Ill see how it goes , sometimes craigslist deals dont' go through but I think this one will since she arranged a time.

[phil]

I got my cabinet free. someone painted it pink inside and I think originally it had this thin veneer trim that was applied like a decal but someone stripped and refinished it. Nothing magnificent but it fit the spot I needed and the price was in my range