Building A Top For The China Cabinet

The top is officially on the china cabinet base!  You may remember in the first post when I said that I ripped it off because it had a huge chunk missing, it also was made of particle board, which I hate.    I plan on selling this china cabinet when I get it completely finished and I refuse to sell something that is not sturdy, so...it had to go.

The china cabinet was originally built like this:

Which was probably fine when it was brand new.  But when I acquired this piece, there was no top to the base section and the hutch was barely attached to the particle board.

My new plan is to create a top for the base and a bottom section for the hutch, so they would simply sit on top of each other or, if for some reason the new owner wants to use them separately, they can.

I decided to go with MDF instead of plywood.  Some may argue with this because if the MDF gets wet it will soak up any water like a sponge.  But I knew I would be painting this piece which would seal it (FYI, you can NOT stain MDF... it turns out horrible).  AND since the MDF will not be on the floor, flooding or standing water should not be a problem.

Luckily the wood around the top part of the cabinet already had pocket holes drilled, so I simply went around and screwed in 1.25 inch screws (where the green arrows are and all around the sides and front).

I did buy some wood trim to make the edges a bit fancier.

I mitered the corners and used wood glue to glue them in place and my brad nailer to make them extra secure.

Here it is pre-paint.

And here it is after paint and moved back inside the house.

Awesome!  The only thing left to do to the bottom piece here is to nail the back of the cabinet back on.  It was really dirty and gave me the creeps, so I tossed the original and actually cut down a piece of plywood I had on hand and painted it.  As soon as it dries, I'll nail it on and have a finished "half" of a china cabinet!

This post is linked up to the following FAB link parties:

DIY Showoff