wow, Jeanne, this door cabinet is one of your DH's creations that I haven't seen before and it's absolutely AWESOME!!! The garden fairies are fabulous and I love your depression glass and ivy collection. I even love the painted glass platter and I seldom get excited about anything painted with a rose pattern. lol! I keep trying to decorate but I just can't seem to find the time and the summer is ripping by. :p I do at least always keep a fresh bouquet of cut flowers on the table and that makes me happy. :)

ive seen a couple threads from people re: painting their oak cabinets. "snookums" mentioned getting new doors in a paint grade poplar. Im wondering if this can be done but keep the oak front boxes. will the oak grain on the old boxes be very noticible? thanx L.

Maureen, It's hard to tell if it had some other purpose. You said that there was a lot of salvage, so it's possible. To my eye it looks purpose made to be the size it is, but that could be deceiving. The thickness doesn't necessarily mean anything either, given the age. They used to make slab doors out of whole planks back then too, like an 18" door from a 20" diameter tree. The thickness might just be to prevent warping in a damp area, or what the maker had hanging about. If this really has you curious, your best bet is to find some old guys who used to work in the houses in your neighborhood, preferably who helped build them, though maybe time is running out on that. Get them to talk to you about what things were like. Before WWII almost all houses were made one at a time by craftsmen, but the same group of craftsmen might go from job to job in a fairly small area. The answer might be, "Yeah, that was Johnny. He liked to put those doors under the sink." Or it could be, "What the heck is that? I never saw a house with that before." Could be fun...

amberm145, that would be one of my most thrilling points! Traditional, flesh eating strippers don't do anything with stain. However.... [insert drum roll] If you put a coat of Citristrip on your stripped wood, it will such the stain right out of the grain. See my pictures above. And we're talking a very dark, 1920s door with tons of paint and clear coats on it. and I have not sanded a speck on the 15 doors I've worked on, nor the kitchen cabinets I've done, other than to brush off the dried Citristrip as I mentioned above. The golden oak cabs I did got very light natural wood, too. I was able to ceruse them with a vinegar (I choose ume plum vinegar, just because I had it) and then a very thinned wash of Varathane 'Sunbleached'. I wanted them to stay light. I love that I don't have to sand.