UFO cabinet...

We have in our possession a unique piece of "Trash" or "Treasure", depending upon one’s view point. It’s a remnant left over from a past kitchen renovation.


In our last home we had gone through the mayhem of remodeling our kitchen. We wanted to keep as much of the existing cabinetry as possible so there were only a couple of cabinets that absolutely had to be removed and replaced with new units to fit the new configuration. One was an over the fridge cabinet, those shallow units that fill the space above the refrigerator.
Somehow during this remolding the removed cabinets were stashed in our family room, guess the garage was too full of "stuff"...that reads all our junk, plus the materials and equipment needed for the construction. However when the dust settled and we removed the plastic traps covering everything I noticed the fridge cabinet sitting on the floor in front of our family room sofa. It looked rather nice there, in a strange sort of way. Sure it was a little low at 12" but if you added some chunky legs to it...oh yes then there's the 3 unfinished sides...well that could be covered with something. The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. Think of all the storage space inside that cabinet ! What a great space to hide magazines, books, games, toys, endless possibilities. So it was salvaged.

Not too far down the time line, we sold our home, that was before the real estate market crashed. The strange cabinet came with us and spent time in our rental house while we looked at homes in our area. I did place a couple of wood, plant dollies under it to raise it to a more suitable height but its sides were still unfinished and, well there’s no way to be nice, the unit was homely, unattractive...no, it was ugly ! Two of its sides had been marked with installation information. Written in black grease pencil and basically irremovable were the large letters "UFO" doubt that stands for unidentified flying object, maybe unfinished overhead cabinets ? Doesn’t quite fit does it ? Upper Fridge something or other? Also the numbers 92 , 28 x 64 were scrawled on both sides of the cabinet...unique but can’t say it adds to the cabinet’s charm.

Photo below shows work in process: cabinet is front side down on floor, the front is the side that has the doors, only here the doors have been removed. John had been trying to fit a 1/4" skin of plywood to one side so the yet to be attached skin is sitting on the cabinet along with his drawings, calculations and tape measure.

At one time we consulted a carpenter/cabinet maker to see about having it made into a coffee table, seemed like an easy enough task as it was already a box and had 2 nice, solid wood doors. All it needed was to finish the 3 sides and put some squat little bun legs on it, however the shop wanted $400...we could buy a brand new coffee table for that and have change left over ! So ugly Betty returned home and sat around for another couple of years.
Now John has decided he’s going to tackle this heirloom, finish off the sides, add some legs and paint or stain it for me. Should have taken a "before" photo but just didn’t think about it soon enough. Right now he has removed the doors and the unit is sitting on its front side (the side where the doors go). I will try to chronicle its progress. Wish it luck !