How-To's Day: CRAFTED Before & After - Display Case

We fixed up a second-hand display case for our cash wrap at CRAFTED and here is the Before & After.

BEFORE:

This Display Case was found at a yard sale for $40 in Lilac, CA when Sharon and I traveled down to Keys Creek Lavender Farm for a day trip. It was small enough to fit in my F.I.T. which is a necessity for all of our display items.  The case was in pretty good shape and I was really exited to find it! A total score!!!

AFTER:

When we finally got the case down to San Pedro all the glass came loose from the frame and pretty much disassembled itself. Because it fell apart there was more steps to put it back together again, but it was a blessing in disguise because I was able to completely rehab the whole case. I worked on the project along side of prepping the walls and the rest of the display so all in all it took me a full week to complete this project. If I needed to come up with a rough estimate of the time I would put it at ~15hours and under $20 for supplies to refresh the beauty back into the case.

First thing, prep the case by sanding the case down. I used a wire brush to make sure the grooves in the case were sanded down and clean.

Once everything is sanded down you can patch up any uneven or damaged surfaces with wood filler.  Let the wood filler dry and sand smooth before moving on to primer.

I think the case looks pretty slick in the grey primer in the all over one color, but I am going to use two colors for the case once everything is said and done.

Using leftover paint from  the walls I painted the main portion of the case in two coats of the turquoise paint and then painted the bottom and inside portion with the contrasting green paint.

Tah-dah! It pops very nicely! I am really glad we painted it two-colors so it will stand out in front of the wood stained wall.

The easy part was painting everything! Then we re installed the hardware and set the shelves before adding the exterior glass.

The glass is held in place with silicone glue that can also be used to glue aquariums.  It is very sturdy and bonds with the glass nicely.  We did put glue on all the top surfaces of the glass before the addition of the top piece of glass. The wooden beam that runs along the back of the case got an extra large heaping of the adhesive because that is the main place that all the case it supported by. Each case will be different. Make sure to figure out where the pressure is held in the structure before working on your case so that you have the weight distributed evenly keeping the glass help together safely. Then we clamped the back portion together with 2" clamps and laid a sheet over everything before lying down weighted objects to distribute pressure on everything as it dries over night.

The next day you can take down the weights and clamps. Our case came with mirrored doors that we placed back into the case to add the finishing touches.

Fill it will all your merchandise and you are ready for business!

Hope you enjoy this before & after. We'd love for you to see it in person at our market stall #A200 at the CRAFTED at the Port of Los Angeles Marketplace if you find yourself down in San Pedro ;)

XOXO, KC