My grandmother had a beautiful set of china that she proudly displayed in her home. I don’t remember her ever using it, but it always looked so nice in her lighted glass cabinet in the dining room. When she passed away a few years ago, my aunt didn’t have room in her house to take the china, so she wanted it to be passed to me as the oldest granddaughter. And, of course, I was happy to have them. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anywhere to display them for a few years since my husband and I had just moved into our new house from our apartment so they sat in boxes while I decided on the type of cabinet I wanted for them. I finally decided that I wanted an antique/vintage china cabinet and I spent almost a year scouring Marketplace, antique stores, and estate sales for the perfect one. One day we were at one of the more “high end” antique stores in town and I saw it: THE cabinet. It was love at first sight and I immediately told my husband that was the one we had to have. He really liked it as well and we purchased it then and there. It was a little pricier than I originally had been looking for, but it was worth the price for how solidly it is constructed and the beautiful leaded glass on the front. I truly had never seen anything like it and still haven’t. The only thing I didn’t like was the gaudy yellowish-green metallic wallpaper on the inside, but I knew I could easily replace it as it obviously wasn’t original to the cabinet.
(The previous wallpaper)
After enlisting some help from my dad to get it loaded on our trailer and into our house, my first order of business was to scrape off all of the wallpaper inside. Thankfully all but one of the shelves was removable which made my job a lot easier. I didn’t use any wallpaper remover solution as it came off easily enough with just one of my husband’s scraper tools. While this process did take me longer than I initially thought it would to complete (mainly because my arm would get tired and thus took me a few weeks) getting that old wallpaper off made an immense difference!
(The chaos of mid-renovation)
During the process of removing the old wallpaper, I searched online for some new wallpaper to put in its place. I had toyed with the idea of just painting it, but ultimately decided I liked the wallpaper idea as it would give it some extra pizazz. This was further reinforced when I found this beautiful one from Graham & Brown (not sponsored). It’s a very dainty floral and leaf pattern in metallic rose gold with a white and gray background. I knew the colors would complement the china well without overpowering it so it was the perfect fit. *Side note: I didn’t realize how expensive wallpaper can be but I ended up with a lot remaining so I will use it for another project someday! *
I have never applied wallpaper in my life, but after doing some research I bought “traditional” wallpaper (aka not peel-and-stick) as I read that traditional wallpaper is actually easier to apply. And since I don’t intend to remove it, it didn’t seem necessary to get the removable kind. I also picked up some wallpaper adhesive from Lowe’s. In its instructions, it says to make sure that your surface is as smooth as possible. So after I had finally removed the old wallpaper, I sanded off as much as I could of the stubborn leftover bits so that it was totally smooth.
Now it was time to apply the wallpaper. The hardest part of this process was measuring and cutting out the pieces. I never enjoy the measurement part of any project but I was very meticulous about this one as I wanted it to be as perfect as I could get. The actual applying of the adhesive and wallpaper was incredibly easy. I just followed the instructions on the adhesive and it applied with no issues. I did make sure to smooth out the wallpaper at the end so that there were no bubbles.
(The beautiful new wallpaper)
As I previously mentioned about not enjoying measuring things, I knew from the outset that I was not going to wallpaper the small edges on the sides. I knew that attempting to get such a small area exactly correct would frustrate me to no end and wouldn’t be worth the mental agony. So I took some leftover rose gold metallic paint I had used for some decorations I made for my wedding and painted the edges with that. And honestly, that turned out even better than I expected! I think it makes a great contrast to the white background of the wallpaper and adds some depth.
(Paint that has been clearly well-loved)
(The paint on the edges to add depth.)
Time for the piéce de résistance: styling the china! I put the shelves back and unwrapped all that gorgeous china. It was the first time I had seen it since it had been at my grandmother’s house and it was even prettier than I remembered! I wanted to try to figure out the date of the china as I don’t think I had ever known. I literally just did an internet search of the exact words on the underside of the plates and found that this particular pattern was manufactured from 1963 - 1981. Usually it’s not that easy to date vintage/antique pieces so I was glad that I didn’t have to do much digging this time! (Also, there seem to be quite a lot of this pattern for sale if this pattern is one you like!)
For styling the plates in the cabinet, I tried a few different configurations of arranging the sets, but this is the one I liked best.
I ended up with the whole bottom shelf empty so I added a few odds and ends including a vintage chocolate pot that I picked up at an estate sale, cookbooks and box of recipe cards, an antique cup and saucer from my cousin’s coffee themed bridal shower, and a pretty pottery plate with a mountain scene we bought in Mt. Rainier. This opened up some space in my kitchen and gives me an excuse to actually open the cabinet on occasion for my cookbooks.
(Over a year of using it and I still love it!)
Overall I am very happy with how this china cabinet turned out. I have been using it for a year now and I love it just as much as the day I finished it. Even though I had to store the china for a few years, it was worth it to wait for the perfect cabinet to come along, and it will be a furniture piece that I will enjoy for the rest of my life. My grandmother never got to see my house as we moved a few months after she passed away, but I know she would definitely approve of how I’m displaying her china. When my family comes to visit, we plan to have a tea party using her china and reminisce about our fun times growing up at her house.
(Bonus: my Grammy and me at my bridal shower)
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