Goodwill Hunting

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly Goodwill Hunting, it was more like Habitat for Humanity Re-Store Hunting, but that just doesn’t roll off the tongue as well.  Every now and then a co-worker and I will stop at the local Re-Store on our lunch break.  We never look for anything specific, just mostly furniture that we can reuse and refinish, etc…

Yesterday we when we hit up the Re-Store I came across the most awesome find.  As I say, “you always find something when you are not looking” just like when I found the white basement bath vanity (mentioned here).

As I’ve said before, our house was built in 1964.  That means our kitchen cabinets (which I painted a glossy white and posted about here)  do not look like the standard cabinets Lowes and Home Depot carry in-stock.  Initially Ryan and I thought we would have to build custom unit (36″w x 42″h x 12″deep) to hang above the corner radius addition area.  Here is the area I’m talking about:

On a lucky strike I came across a 30″w x36″h upper cabinet unit very similar to our existing cabinets at the Re-Store.  I walked a few more steps and discovered the matching 12″ upper cabinet.  Putting both pieces together we get 30″w x 42″h x 12″d…exactly what we need!  The big cabinet was priced at $50 and the smaller $45.  A little over-priced for 1964 cabinets, but a new white 30″w x 36″h cabinet at Lowes runs $230 plus another $100 for the smaller 12″ piece.  We love the fact that we’ve been fairly ‘green’ in this kitchen and can once again renew, reuse, and recycle.  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Here are some pics of the bigger unit.  It will be hung below the smaller 12″ cabinet against the wall, flush in the corner.

The unit is missing the inside shelves but it will be a five minute job for Ryan to cut the pieces and get them screwed in.

And the 12″ smaller cabinet which was only $5 cheaper (it’s a racket I tell ya) is completely perfect.

The two cabinets fit perfectly on top of one another, phew!  I totally should have checked that in the store, but i figured my measurements were spot on (yes, I keep a mini tape measure in my purse…I’m crazy, I know).

I plan on puttying the door pulls and moving them up to match the placement with our existing cabinets.   In case you can’t envision it, here is a mock-up.

In order to make the existing upper cabinet and the new Re-store unit flow together flawlessly we plan to cut and install 3 or 4 curved open air shelves around the corner to mimic the curve on the radius corner.  Once everything is sanded, puttied, primed, and painted a glossy white these new cabinets will fit flawlessly into our kitchen.  Of course we will replace the hardware to match what we already have.  I am super psyched.  Who knew we would be able to find an almost perfect match to our 1964 painted cabinets.

Can you envision the refinished cabinets?  Have you reused and refinished anything from the Re-Store lately?  Let us know by commenting below!