The cabinet at the top of the stairs

Really.

That's what we call it.

Maybe it doesn't have quite the ring that

"the cupboard under the stairs"

has, but it's gotta be close!

Anyway, I bought this little cabinet from a classified ad for $50 several years ago. In my head it was going to sit just inside our front door, but it was too big. Instead, it went to the landing at the top of the stairs, and there it has sat ever since!


And it was fine for a long time. It holds all my yarn stash, and other miscellany crafty items. It was a brown cabinet on a white wall, and it wasn't bothering anybody.

Then I had to go and paint the wall...a year ago. Now it was an ugly brown cabinet on a brown wall, and it bothered ME...a lot!!


If it bothered me so much, you might wonder why it took a year to paint it. Well, there were too many more-fun-more-interesting projects waiting in the garage. Then there was homeschool. Then there were the holidays.

But all that is OVER now....and the time had come.

Wednesday I bought paint and a dropcloth (which I used as a dropcloth) and got to work!

The poor little cabinet never moved from the top of the stairs. I just pulled it away from the wall and left the doors and drawers hanging open for a few days. It's OK. No one fell down the stairs in the middle of the night... (that I know of--I wear earplugs at night!)

I used Behr Premium paint in "Heavy Cream." In retrospect, and I needed something a little more creamy, but that's how the milk spilt! I used Minwax Dark Walnut stain to glaze it all over, and I replaced the hardware (except the hinges, although I would have if I could have gotten them off).

It definitely "pops" more against the brown wall now, and that's good.


The bad is that it isn't exactly the same "white" as the framed pictures above it.

And the pictures aren't going / can't go anywhere!

(These are my treasured hand-painted irises on porcelain tiles that my mother made. They are beyond gorgeous, but the frames may have to be re-re-painted to match the cabinet now!)


The color difference was really bothering me until I put a few doo-dads on the cabinet. That helps fool my eye into not noticing the difference quite so much!


I will admit this isn't my ideal piece of furniture for this spot--what I really want is an antique dresser that's up on legs. But I can live with it a while longer now!

What do you think? Better?