I love, love, love the look of apothecary cabinets and apparently so does everyone else on the planet. Purchasing one will set you back quite a large chunk of change. Go on, do a search online; the prices will make your jaw drop. They are more than I can justify spending! I purchased a couple of Moppe cabinets from Ikea a few months back and I’ve been thinking of how I could spruce them up a little. Their small drawers are perfect for turning this cabinet into an Apothecary inspired chest of drawers.
Not only are these little cabinets a terrific value they’re great for storing lots of small items. They’re perfect for holding all my smaller rubber stamps and assorted paper punches in my craft room. The drawers keep everything in them within easy reach. They are perfectly fine little cabinets but they sure look quite boring and ho-hum.
The weather has been dreadful, so outside activities are on hold. But it’s the perfect weather for some indoor craft projects! Since I was stuck at home I decided to finally transform these plain Jane cabinets into something with a little more visual appeal; an apothecary style chest of drawers. Keep reading to find out how I did it.
Supplies for One Cabinet:
- Ikea, Moppe 6 drawer cabinet, link
- (7) Antique Bronze, Drawer Pulls, link
- Minwax wood stain
- Popsicle stick
- Paint brush
- Rags
- Rubber gloves
- (2) 8 ft lengths trim molding
- Miter box saw, or chop saw
- Wood glue
- Clamps
- Ruler
- Pen & paper
- Scissors
- Screwdriver
Start by removing all the drawers from the cabinet.
Stir stain with a popsicle stick, do not shake the can. Shaking the can will produce air bubbles making it more difficult to apply the color evenly onto your surfaces.
I was almost out of both colors of stain so I used a combination of two colors, Minwax Special Walnut #224, and English Chestnut #233. The Walnut is a nice dark color and the English Chestnut adds just a hint of red giving the piece a richer color.
It’s a good idea to protect your work surface and to wear gloves to protect your hands when applying stain. Use a paint brush to apply the stain and wipe off excess stain with a dry rag.
Continue until you have stained all the drawers, the cabinet and the wood trim. Be sure to stain all four sides of each drawer.
Set the stained pieces aside to dry. I let everything dry overnight.
Once the stain is completely dry, it’s time to add some trim to each drawer. Cut trim to size for each drawer. Cut the ends at a 45 degree angle using a miter box saw. It’s not that difficult to cut the trim by hand since we are using small trim that’s fairly thin, but if you have access to a chop saw it will go a lot quicker.
Place wood glue onto the back side of each trim piece and place along the outer edges of each drawer. Hold them in place with clamps until the glue has completely dried.
There are only 6 drawers for the Moppe cabinet, but I cut the trim for the largest drawer to mimic the look of two drawers, side by side, instead of just one long drawer.
Once you have attached the trim pieces to the drawers it’s time to add the final touch; the drawer pulls. I chose these antique bronze pulls because I think they give the drawers a more vintage look, but you could certainly use pulls in any color you like. You can find many options online, brass, black metal, even stainless steel finishes. I was going for a vintage, old school library vibe so I chose an antique brass finish.
Use a piece of butcher paper and place it onto the drawer front. Use your fingernail to score/crease the paper along the edges.
Cut the paper along the crease you made. You now have a template the exact size of your drawer front to work with.
Good to Know: You will need to create two templates, one for the 3 smallest drawers along the top and another for the 4 larger drawer fronts. The templates will help you keep the drawer pulls nice and straight and even so they aren’t all caddywompus.
Measure out and draw lines to find the center.
Place a drawer pull onto the center of the template and use a pen to mark the holes for where the screws need to go. Poke small holes through the paper for the screw holes.
Place the paper template onto each drawer front and mark the screw holes on each drawer front with a marker.
Remove the paper template and line up holes on the drawer pull with the marks on the drawer front. Use a screwdriver to screw each drawer pull onto each drawer.
One down, six more to go…
One last final step is to touch up any spots that may have bare wood peeking through. My trim pieces chipped a little in a few spots when I was cutting them to size so I used a little stain to cover that up. Slide the drawers in place and fill them with craft supplies, or knick-nacks, jewelry, hair accessories, nail polish bottles, small plants, or use it at your coffee bar to hold K-cups and tea bags…these little drawers can store a wide variety of small items. Get the clutter off your counters and tucked away in this stylish apothecary cabinet instead.
I just love how these cabinets turned out! What a total transformation! They went from drab to fab! A boring uninspiring cabinet into a vintage, show stopping, beautiful chest of drawers! The best part is that it cost me a fraction of what an apothecary cabinet would have cost me. It came to about $45 in supplies and a few hours of my time to create these truly handsome looking cabinets. Not too bad if I do say so myself! Considering the fact that I have almost zero carpentry skills, I was able to complete this project all on my own and it actually looks quite professional. I feeling pretty satisfied with myself for completing this project all by myself.
So are you going to give this little project a try? Let me know in the comments if you do and if you have any questions. I’m happy to share what I learned from doing this project. It’s a lot easier to do than you probably think and I know you will love the finished results just as much as I do.
Did You Make This?
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Colossians 3:17
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