Vintage Victrola Liquor Cabinet/ Bar

A friend of mine had this old victrola that she had given up on refurbishing and passed it on to me. I enthusiastically went about dismantling the non-working parts of this piece with a vision of making it into a wine bar.

But like my friend, I lost steam and the victrola sat for months. It needed so much cleaning that I kept putting it off. The wood was beautiful but needed so much work that I thought this was a good opportunity to try out some new paints.

I realized when I took out the parts, I would have to add a shelf to the inside of the lid. Also, the bottom of the main interior compartment was so bad that I decided to add a new piece of wood in there as well.

I finally got up the energy and cleaned it all up with TSP. I did a coat of shellac to seal in the tannins (to keep the old, rich wood from bleeding through the paint).

I painted with two coats of Wise Owl Paints in Limestone for the exterior and Higgins Lake for the interior. I almost gave up on painting the inside of the small doors because they are soooo long and narrow, it was very difficult. But I managed to keep going and get the job done!

I added a wash of Shabby Paints Black Revax to enhance the slight crackling/ distressing.

And now for the fun part!!!

I added some French Typography onto the two front main doors.

"Wine & Spirits Specialty Fine Wines"

After cutting the new shelf, painting and revaxing it, I hand stained the images of the wine glass and corkscrew. For this part, I tried out my Shabby Paints Gelato gel stain in Licorice.

And for the icing on the cake.... I hand stained the image of the wine/ barrel/ grapes onto the top of the victrola. I call this technique stain shading or stain painting (or shading with stain.... can't seem to come up with a proper term).

I sealed all areas with a quality top coat for protection.

I forgot to mention, I left the inside of the lid in its natural state because the wood in that area was so beautiful and it also has the original Victrola mark.

I then started working on the hardware... I cleaned it all up and applied gilding paste to the original hardware. I added hanging hardware for glassware behind those two small doors.

I also added hardware on each side - a towel bar, and a hook for hanging corkscrew, bottle opener, or any other necessities.