Final Cabinet Fix-Up

As we head into fall and the coming cold weather, I feel the pressure of getting the cabinet models sold and out of the garage. This means some need to have a face-lift so they can be sold and I worked on a few of them this weekend. One was a Bernina Record 730 that came in a very nice cabinet with drawers and even a pull-up thread rack. When open it looks good but the top was a mess when closed up with a big black ink stain and poor surface. I masked it with tape and plastic bags and stripped off the finish. That poor ink stain remained but it did shrink and lighten. Mahogany stain followed by two coats of polyurethane and it looks so much better:

Cabinet for Bernina 730 with refinished top

Now that was a quick fix but here's one that was long in the making but had a fairly quick finish. This Brother sewing machine below is one of my favorites with a compact cabinet and chair, in excellent finished shape but...no chair seat. I bought the wood and foam but just lacked the tools to cut the wood to size. It ended up in my kitchen for several years and I finally said "ENOUGH" and moved it to the garage. Yesterday I visited my daughter to get a grandbaby fix and brought along the chair and wood for my son-in-law to  cut for me. Eric has a great set-up in his garage and really knows what he's doing but it all goes into storage during the winter so I had to get this done now. He cut the wood perfectly and I brought it home to complete in steps:

Cabinet with Brother sewing machine looks good..

...and then you see there is no seat!

With wood cut and foam in place it's getting ready

Foam covered with a layer of batting

Fabric pulled up and stapled onto plywood in place

No sew corners, just folded

Thin wood with notched corners screwed together. Metal brackets keep it from sliding.

Seat and cushion ready for use.

It fits nice but I wish I had matched the fabric better to the machine colors but sometimes the buyer doesn't care or has their own ideas in mind and would have changed it no matter what I would have done.

Number three in the cabinet fix-up was a compact cabinet that came to me in pretty ugly form:

Green paint inside treadle-stripped out base

Inside of the door

Opened up it's clean and smooth

Green interior? It looked like someone got sick in there but the exterior wasn't too bad with just the top surface stripped and in rough shape. So with lots of sanding and cleaning up, I finally gave the interior a face lift with white paint. The cabinet got stained and polyurethane to end up like a decent cabinet:

Closed with top sanded clean and smooth

Ready for the finishing products

Opened up with inside painted

Final assembly with inside finished, door back on.

 The sewing machine itself is a well used Singer 66 that needed some attention. Because this was originally a treadle cabinet that has been stripped of the treadle mechanism, when they added the electric motor and cords it didn't really fit well. The motor block was sitting on the top surface behind the motor but I figured I could change that to under the top surface between the holes for what would have been the treadle belt. I had to extend the electrical cords so they would reach but that wasn't too difficult. Finding a set of cords and knee control that would fit into the cabinet was more difficult but I had one and got it all into place.

Bottom of the sewing machine head showing motor block placement

It's never going to be a beautiful sewing machine or cabinet but it's good in a semi-rustic way and will have many years of use left in it. It came to me pretty ugly but is leaving looking a bit rustic but not rough. I call that a win-win.

Modest little cabinet with a Singer 66 hidden inside