Project: Built-in China Cabinet and Dining Room Storage

I wanted shelves in the dining room that looked like shelves I had seen in a Bed & Breakfast in Ireland. And no, I did not get a photo of them. I wanted display shelves, some serving surface and some hidden storage underneath. We decided to build in the china cabinet we already had.

I spent a lot of time wandering around Lowes and Home Depot seeing what was available. This is what I came up with.

Where they sell plywood, they have very thin nicer plywood. We bought that to make the back wall. We bought shelving boards in two sizes. One for shelves, the other to make the countertops. We bought cabinet trim moulding with a scalloped edge.

The hardest part was the gingerbread for the top. There are a few places to look for trim and gingerbread.

You can find it with shelving. These are the brackets that are to hold up shelves.

It is with exterior trim. This is the decorative trim you see on porches.

Corbels were where they sell cabinets. These were expensive.

There were also some pieces where they sell interior trim.

You can find other pieces where they sell fencing.

Some are made from wood. Some are made from really nice wood. Some are made from composite. Some are plastic. They are all different thicknesses. I wanted everything wood, but it didn’t have to be oak or cherry or anything.

I tried to do it on graph paper. I measured all of the parts, measured the room… It was just too complicated. Finally I just bought four of each of everything that might work and laid them out on the floor over and over until I found a combination that worked. They fit the space and they are close to the same thickness. Some pieces are from Lowes and some are from Home Depot.

My son-in-law used a router to get a nice ogee edge on the shelves. Then, I sanded everything and painted it with watered down paint the same yellow color as the walls. I gave it a few coats to make sure it had soaked into the grain thoroughly. Once the paint dried, I sanded it off lightly and sealed it with clear water based Minwax. I gave it a few coats, sanding between coats, till it was perfect enough.

Beau used liquid nails to attach the plywood to the walls. The shelves are attached to the china cabinet and the walls. He used metal brackets to attach the top shelf. He used a micro-pinner to put all of the gingerbread pieces together.

I just used swing-arm curtain rods and café curtains to finish the bottom.