Cabinet in the Ruff

So this post requires that you all know a little back ground story.
 
It all started about a year ago when Arren, Dad and myself were doing some yard work for an elderly lady my dad cares for. In her yard is a dilapidated shed with lots of tools and several rooms packed full of old, interesting goodies.
 
Among the interesting goodies, a cabinet caught my eye. I first noticed its odd bean shaped mirror and then as I got a closer look I saw it was not just an old cabinet, but a wonderful and lovely piece of furniture with some intricate wood work.
 
I immediately showed my dad and convinced him that this cabinet needed to be moved out of the shed (it looked as if it could fall over at in moment) and inside. He agreed but it was getting late and we needed to finish the yard work, so it would have to wait.
 
Fast forward a year later and I brought up the cabinet again when we were doing more yard work. This time around we were committed to getting the cabinet out which was more complicated than we thought it would be. Stacked in front of it were old tins, boxes and about anything you could imagine. An hour later we were successful, the cabinet had been moved into the Township shed.
 
To our dismay, the once undoubtedly beautiful cabinet was now in shambles. Termites had called the cabinet home for several years and the whole left side of it was destroyed. Not to mention the pull out drawer and secretary were falling apart from those pesky critters.

But my dad had faith in the cabinet and took it to a local Amish man who restores furniture. He told my dad it wouldn’t be cheap (nothing ever is) but he could fix up the cabinet good as new.

Fast forward another 6 months and oh boy did he fix us up a cabinet! I wish I had pictures before it went into the Amish body shop, but the end results were a big ole wow!  

The Amish man had to put a whole new left side on the cabinet, but you can’t tell the difference between the new and old wood. He redid the pull out door, the shelves in the secretary, and a few shelves in the right side glass cabinet. He stained the whole cabinet "bourbon" which he thought was very close to the original color. He also found a date on the back of the mirror which said the cabinet was made in 1897. That’s one old cabinet!  

I’m not only writing this story to show off our awesome cabinet, this weekend we moved the cabinet into Arren and my place. So now we officially own our first piece of antique furniture!