Farmhouse Antiques: Useful and Versatile

This old oak kitchen cupboard has been around our house for at least 24 years.

When we first bought it, we used it to disguise a stereo/turntable combination that was big and modern looking at the time, and it sat in our living room.

Then we moved into the old farmhouse almost twenty years ago, it looked great in the kitchen, serving as much needed pantry space.

After that, we used it in the family room for storage of movies, neglected in a corner, kind of an afterthought.

Lately, we've begun to get some re-decorating done in the family room after the installation of hardwood in there. One day, I was sitting and looking around to see where everything would fit, when it suddenly occurred to me that since we now have a manageable sized TV (instead of a 54"!!) that we might measure and see how things fit into this old cabinet.

As you can see, the TV fit into the cabinet just fine and I was jumping up and down!

(Now I can close the doors on the TV when I'm home alone and all is quiet!)

And with an hour's work, and with a little changing around of the shelves inside, we have our satellite, DVD, and television in the top. All Mr. Farmhouse had to do was move shelving, paint where they had been, and drill holes for the cords in the back of the cabinet.

It's all oak and it's nice, but we buy our antiques to actually USE, so altering them doesn't bother us one bit. We're not concerned with resale value or keeping them pristine.

So now remotes, and little items will be stored in the two center silverware drawers, and below, the DVDs will fit just perfectly in the shelves there.

Solid, useful, and versatile, our investment of a couple hundred dollars then lasts and lasts, unlike new furniture that is almost impossible to remake many times like this one has been.

And in the future, repairs, patches, new shelves, any of it can be done and can be put back like it was before if that's what we want.

I hope to show you this room makeover soon, the going has been very slow for us, and we have more than just this room going on. This cabinet solved many problems for us and makes arranging the furniture in this room much, much easier!

If you've got your eye on a good antique, remember that most of them can be easily remade, repaired for what you need now, and re purposed again and again!