Brightening up the china cabinet

I've been working on some projects for our dining room in the last several months. This room is getting a bit of an overhaul and I'm too excited to share the details as they come together. We're getting a special deliver tomorrow!

We have a bunch of great antique furniture in the room that came from my husband's mother's side of the family. They are so beautiful and in good condition. If I'd picked them up at a yard sale, I might be inclined to paint them, but since they are family pieces, I don't want to alter them.

One of the pieces is a china cabinet. Here is a pic of it in our old house:

Very nice...has great shape and some cool scrollwork over the glass. Well, now in our new house, it's on the same wall as the window and it looks very.........dark....in there. Here is a pic I took of it here (it's really a pic for the paint samples, but it works).

You can't even tell there are shelves, really.

Again, without wanting to alter the cabinets too much, I decided there must be a way to brighten it up. Paint would have looked awesome in the backs of those shelves....sigh.

Never fear...finally I had a brilliant idea! I used scrapbook paper to line the back of the shelves with a pattern. Scrapbook paper is one of my favorite home dec solutions. The colors and patterns are great and it's dirt cheap. Mine was on sale even...I bought 11 sheets for about $2.75.

I used rulers and my cutting boards to cut the paper. Since the backing was about 34 in long, I had to cut three pages and tape them together. The patterns also had to be matched.

I used double-sided scrapbooking tape to adhere the pieces together. Then, I added small pieces around the perimeter to stick it to the back of the cabinet. I will confess...once I put them it there, I had to take them out and trim them a tad.

And here she is......

Of course, with two children around, a bit of glass cleaner was needed....

I like seeing a bit of color and pattern in the back there. It certainly adds a little interest. Now I have to figure out how to use the shelves in a pleasing and functional way!

Which might be harder than figuring out how to brighten up the dark cabinet. : )

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