my latest 50 cent thrill

I love the thrift store. LOVE.

I realize this is no unique statement as the thrift store and flea market finds are so trendy right now that we have coined a new term, "upcycling."

But I love it there. I call it treasure hunting whenever I go. I sort through all the homewares and furniture... the dishes, and kitchen gadgets. I make up stories for what something is if its not clear. I imagine what things would look like with a can of spray paint and where I would put them in my dream home.

And sometimes, I find a treasure that will make our current home, mostly furnished and a temporary situation, even better.

So, when we were trolling our closest location of goodwill recently, I was incredibly excited to find this:

And, even better, a price of $.50! Once home, I pulled it out of the package, and set it up for a little paint. Would it have mattered if I painted it??
Not really, the shelf I was fitting it under has a lip, so you can't see any of this once installed. I painted, mostly for protection since the wood seemed pretty unsealed... and very dried out.

I went with the hammered black finish from some cabinet hardware I recently re-did. A couple of coats later, and it was ready for install.

So I took the shelf off our dining room armoire,

turned it upside down,

and used some screws from the garage to attach it.

I chose to go this way (glasses slide right to left) as opposed to front to back because it was a little more space efficient.
I put the shelf back in place and excitedly tried to load my stemware

And my dollar store wine glasses seem to have too chunky of a base for this model. (this is a risk with thrift store finds. Why did someone else throw out this seemingly practical thing?)
Back to the drawing board. I took the shelf back out, remove the screws and then... tore the backing board off. This seperated the "rungs" of the stemware holder from the wood piece they were glued to at the "perfect" spacing to hang your stemware.

I then went and screwed in each "rung" individually. And this is where the dried out wood started to give. I was able to keep it solid enough to feel comfortable hanging fragile glasses from it... but it wasn't very pretty.

So, for now, I opted to be thankful that its not visible when the shelf is in place and went with it. Eventually, I will take on this sort of project again but with a little more foresight. With the new spacing, I also lost one rung making this only fit 9 glasses instead of 12.
Fine for now. But I'm already planning the next rendition.

So then, I got to put my shelf all back together!

And after all that, it looks pretty good! Really loving the lip on the shelf now!!!

By the way, this armoire was FREE! I spent about $30 on paint and found the awesome hardware online for about $10 and I have to say, its a pretty stylish armoire for having once lived in a best western. (Maybe someday I will post on how to make best western furniture look like this...)

Well, go on now, find something crafty to do!
LIA