"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing." - Phyllis Diller

My daughter has this on again off again love affair with her American Girl dolls. She will go through phases where she plays with them and even sleeps with them 24/7....then there are those times she doesn't even know they exist. When she "cleans" up her room, the $40 outfits for a $100 doll get thrown in the bottom of her closet. Can you hear the heart attack I have when I see that??
 
So since I have this thing about redoing furniture, I was on a mission to find a piece that I could transform into a semi wardrobe for the American Girl doll items. Goodwill is one of my favorite places to look for such pieces. I looked for months....I found nothing that would work in the limited space she has in her room.
 
One day about a month or two ago, mom and I (and Grace too) were out antiquing. We were driving by a street where I saw a piece that someone had at the end of their driveway to throw out that would be perfect!! So we stopped. Mom knocked on the door and asked if we could take it. It was generously given to us for free by the homeowner, who also tried to convince us to take the other two pieces. Turns out these pieces were kitchen cabinets that he had torn out. Here's what it looked like only I turned it upside down.
 

 

Yea I know....hard to see any kind of prettiness in this, but I saw it's potential! So I striped the nasty dirty brown plastic covering off of it, and sanded it down. (Side note - I got to use my new electric sander which was a lot of fun! However, if you look close at this piece, you can tell I was an electric sander virgin on this project!!!)

 

Took the doors off, then I filled in the holes with wood putty and sanded again (by hand this time). I painted it with a white paint that also had white primer in it.

 

 

 



 My daughter's room is in the beginning stages of changing over from polka dots to a zebra theme. So once everything dried after THREE coats, (dDefinitely not what I expected. Thought it would be much less than that.) I wanted to trim the doors in zebra to give it some character. Well, we had left over zebra duct tape from Grace's duct tape bracelet making party in August, so I used it to trim the doors.

I also bought little white door knobs to put on the doors to help Grace open them easily. They were plain white plastic. I painted little zebra lines on them with black paint.

 (Sorry this pic is being a pain!!)

 

 

   

 

As you can see on the outside of left door, I ran out of duct tape!! Seriously, only about 12 more inches needed!! I wanted to scream!!! So the project was put off yet another day (it had already been two weeks of working on it a little at a time). But no fear! I got more tape and finished! I also decided to trim the little baskets I got for 90 cents at Target on my couponing deal! (see earlier posts)

 

 

 

(The labels were made out of zebra scrap booking paper.)

 

I thought I was finished but then realized that  the top was just too plain. So I decided I wanted to make a zebra runner for the top, which would also help protect it from the wrath of my daughter! :) My mom had extra zebra material from a project that she and Grace did this summer, so I "sewed" it with my magic tape and iron! It's a little wide, but it works for now.

 

 



 

 

We used a spring rod inside to hang the clothes. And now I'm on a mission to find doll clothes hangers because we have more clothes than hangers. Of course I forgot to take a pic of the inside. I'll try to remember to take one later.

 

So, after several months of this big ugly cabinet sitting in my living room collecting dust, it is FINALLY finished and in Grace's room for use! It was a fun project and Grace loves it. So all in all, it was a success and cost me a total of $28 for paint, more duct tape, spring rod and door knobs. Not a bad deal, huh?!