I have been hoping to find a beautiful chinoiserie style armoire on a thrifting trip. I originally hoped to find a black one and after looking for years it became clear that finding a big, beautiful lacquered armoire was a difficult ask for a thrift find. I have looked at several along the way that were generally pretty expensive and I also realized they might not be sturdy enough to hold the things that I needed to store.
This white cabinet came from a big box store decades ago and stores my art and craft supplies. Collectively they are heavy. This cabinet is also deep which is a bonus. It was originally in the basement but when I morphed the room upstairs into the "Garden Room," as I call it, I brought it upstairs which was much more convenient. I knew it wasn't attractive and the search for the chinoiserie armoire began. No luck on that front. I had considered a couple of options to make it look better while looking for the elusive armoire but nothing really grabbed me.
(Here it was - big and white!)
Reality set in - 1. I don't think any of the traditional chinoiserie cabinets will be large enough or strong enough. 2. Even if I find one they are thousands of dollars and I'm not willing to spend that. 3. I will keep looking but I cannot look at that big white box anymore.
I popped on to Pinterest and started looking at antique and vintage chinoiserie cabinets with the thought of doing something to the cabinet to improve it. The first thing that happened is that a lot of beautiful green chinoiserie cabinets popped up and I became obsessed with the idea of doing something green. After all, there are green velvet curtains in the room already along with other green touches to perpetuate the "Garden Room" feel. See my inspiration board here.
The second thing that happened is that I realized that some of the pretty chinoiserie cabinets were made by American furniture companies like Thomasville and Baker and they were stenciled! I was on to something. I ordered about 20 dollars of chinoiserie stencils and pulled out my paint deck and some Rub and Buff and decided to see if I could give this old white cabinet a "faux" chinoiserie finish.
This Thomasville Mystique Vintage Handpainted server was on Chairish for $2200.00.
Look - it's stenciled! So I decided to combine the looks using stencils and gold paint. I decided to try Rub and Buff first because I like the look of its finish, I was going to be stenciling on an upright piece of furniture and it doesn't drip and I thought sponging it on would give me the look I was after.
I decided on SW Garden Grove. The name seemed an omen and I wanted a green that would blend well with the other greens already in the room. I lightly sanded the cabinet and then primed it. Once that dried I rolled on 2 coats of the green paint using a sponge roller specifically for smooth services. I let that cure a couple of days before beginning to stencil.
I used a sponge that I cut into small squares to stencil with. I also used a foam "spouncer" from the craft store for some smaller spaces.
I decided to start with the sides and figure out the best way to layout the designs and see how the Rub and Buff was going to do before committing to the front cabinet doors.
At this point I'm just winging it with the layout. It would be easy to lay out the design on brown paper to be sure it was balanced and worked well with the dimensions but I just went for it. I figured that by the time I got to the front I'd have a good feel for how to stencil with the Rub and Buff, drying times, etc.
And then on to the front of the cabinet.
I'm very pleased with how the cabinet is turning out. The Rub and Buff gives just the right amount of texture and shine and goes on easily without seeping under the stencil. It does take quite a bit so I had to order more tubes!
This is turning out to be a really fun project! I think it has vastly improved a $100.00 utility cabinet. I did pause here and order one more stencil that had some more variety to choose from including pagodas in a couple of smaller sizes to mix in. If I were covering a smaller space like a dresser front I probably would have just repeated the designs like some of the chests on my Pinterest board.
I'm spending a lot of time sitting on the floor stenciling and looking up. I decided to start at the top and to "loosely' create a scene that seemed like we are peeking through the cherry blossoms at a little village scene.
I will link (at the end of the post) the stencils I purchased, the cost and my thoughts on how much I used/needed them in case you decide to try your own chinoiserie furniture dupe!
I base coated the handles (which are just plastic) with gold spray paint and then gave them a coat of Rub and Buff after that so the gold matched.
Finished! And Cooper approved. I am starting to put the room back together after completely emptying it out to paint the wood floors and the cabinet. More to come!
What I used for the cabinet:
Secret Garden Toile Stencil $9.00 I used this stencil a great deal. It had multiple pagodas and elements that I worked in throughout the pattern.Koi Fish Stencils $9.00 The stencil designs are beautiful and you get a lot of size variety in the package. I used these along the bottom of the "scene" I created and I don't think they are a huge bonus to this cabinet but on another project they could be great.
These three stencils were the workhorses of this project and I paid about $18 for all three. Here, here and here.
This is the Rub and Buff I used. It took more than I estimated but I love the finished look and it was easy to control on the vertical surface.
