Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Mission Accomplished


My dad built this beautiful entertainment center for our 2nd Christmas 19 years ago. It's solid oak, and very sturdy. Through the years it has moved from the living room, to the kitchen, and now to the dining room. I never tire of it.


This was the state I found it in this morning. It holds my dining linens, and can get a little messy at times.


Especially the napkins. Asking children to put things away neatly does not always mean that they do the job to satisfy me.


The bottom drawer, designed to hold VHS tapes held our placemats and vinyl tablecloths. Those tablecloths are very rarely used, and I considered getting rid of them, but they certainly are nice to have when youngsters are decorating cookies, and gingerbread houses.



I decided the drawer might keep the napkins looking a little neater. And I moved the placemats to the shelf.



I installed a very short shower curtain tension rod into the main body of the cabinet. After ironing all of the tablecloths, I hung them to prevent creases and to keep them from becoming a jumbled mess.

That's much better!

11 comments:

Becky K. said...

Tracy,

That is great. A makeover!

I would treasure this cabinet too.

Becky K.

Danielle said...

Wow! Tracy, that looks wonderful!

Rachel said...

I need to do something similar with my table linens (shoved into drawers in an antique dresser with little rhyme or reason).

I do like what you did--but I need to ask, where on earth did you find a short shower curtain rod? I could really use one, and while I haven't really looked very hard yet, I'd love to get a bit of a head start on where to *not* look, iykwim...

The cabinet, btw, is absolutely lovely. The closest thing I could ever have to that, would be the two captain's beds my father build for my sister and myself decades ago. They aren't being used, and are in storage at my parents' home. Wish I could get them out here for my boys...

I love family furniture...

Deanna Rabe - Creekside Cottage Blog said...

What a wonderful gift!

Great idea to add the tension rod and hang the fabric tablecloths! It looks great!

Tracy said...

Rachel,
The small tension rod I found extends no more than 40", and I found it at Wal*mart for less than $6.

Terri said...

You did a wonderful job and I love the cabinet. It's beautiful!

sherry said...

Beautiful cabinet, Tracy! Really beautiful. :o)

Love your new linens organization. I recently had to overhaul mine as well - so nice to open a drawer and be met with clean lines rather than jumbled mess.

jAne * tickleberryfarm.blogspot.com

Susan said...

Looks great!! I, too, hang my large tableclothes but only in the closet since I don't have a lovely chest like yours :o)
Susan

Rachel said...

Thank you, so much...

I will need to take a look next week, when I do my biweekly shopping trip.

I have an "extra" armoire..but it is so big, I'm not really sure where I'd put it to use it for hang up linens. I think that the dresser will have to work for now :-)

It is a lovely piece, though--thank you for sharing it with us!

Kelly said...

This gave me a really good idea on how to handle our linens! Thanks!

The cabinet is beautiful too!

Roxanne said...

Lovely linens, lovely blog!

I'm enjoying reading through and seeing all the great pictures.

I just had to comment on this. Now I'm off to read more!

Roxanne