In my career I have probably styled a hundred China Cabinets, Curio Cabinets, and Cupboards. Everything from the shiny new to grandma’s favorite antique. There is definitely an art to styling a china cabinet. I know this will shock you, but I don’t actually own a “China Cabinet”!!! Yet, they are my favorite things to style. I’m a believer in cupboards and I have many.
This is a really long post so I’m breaking it up into two parts. Today we will talk about styling preparation.
First of all the glass door part of a china cabinet is NOT FOR STORAGE! Shocking but true. It’s for creating the opportunity to display the moments of your life that are important to you. After all a china cabinet is just a cabinet. You can use it for whatever purpose suits you. It can create a focal point, give your room height, and balance. Nothing more lovely than a China Cabinet in a luxurious bathroom filled with repurposed silver, glass, and towels! I’m still dreaming about that one! China Cabinets, Library Cabinets, Curio Cabinets they are actually all the same when it comes to how you go about styling them.
In my opinion there is nothing more boring then a china cabinet filled with china that never gets used, with crystal that never sees a glass of wine and a stack of plates where you only see the edges.
Cabinet at a B&B in Ohio
Start by clearing the decks, I shouldn’t have to say this but clean! The inside should be sparkling and free of dust, glass freshly washed. Nothing should go back in the cabinet that hasn’t been cleaned or dusted.
Have a heart to heart with yourself. Are you displaying grandma’s dishes because you love them or because they are grandma’s dishes? You should only be displaying things that fascinate and stimulate you on some level. It doesn’t have to be china, or dining room related stuff. I give you permission to fill your cabinet with what you want!!!
A china cabinet needs a back drop. Most cabinets have a wood back that has absolutely nothing to do with your room design, consider painting the inside a coordinating color that accents the items you want to use in your cabinet and will enhance your room. If that terrifies you, start with a couple of pieces of foam core or poster board painted, papered, or upholstered in the color of your choice.
Most cabinets are lit and have glass shelves. Glass shelves allow the light to filter down to the bottom. If your cabinet is not lit you can purchase inexpensive battery operated puck lights to help brighten the cabinet and enhance the mood of your room. In my corner cabinet I drilled a hole in the top of the cabinet and added a very small chandelier not only for the light (because ooh that really helped!) but also for a bit of whimsy.
Whenever I’m designing a cabinet for a client I always want to see what is behind closed doors. I find my clients often have wonderful things but they are stored because they don’t know how to display them.
Get Them Out. Even if you don’t think they will work. This is all about looking at your things in a new way. Put a cloth or towel over the table (to avoid scratches). I now want you to divide the table into thirds. Label them if neccessary.
Start by selecting the things you love whether they seem to go together or not. Either because of their artistic merit or even because of sentiment. Put those items together. You will start to identify a trend. You don’t have to have a reason to love something other than the fact that you do. I promise it’s ok.
Next group things together that you really like. Like and love are two different things. These are things that bring a smile to your face. Can these things work with the things you love? Of course they can. You picked it out. You either purchased it because it spoke to you or you selected it from grandma’s house because it made you smile. These are the things that create your home.
Then there is the I have this. The third section. This is the stuff all of us have, stuff we bought for whatever reason. It either didn’t look like you thought it would or you used it 10 years ago and put it away.
Now, it’s time to step back and analyze what you have put together. Do you see a common thread? That thread can be color, texture, it can be type of item. Hopefully these are the things that make your heart sing. That over-stated “bring you joy”. But it is true. These become your building blocks. These are the things that you love so you start looking for more of that type of thing.
As you look for that common thread, check what else you have that MIGHT support those items. I call these fill items. Equally important and very often the “glue that makes everything stick”. Do you have some dishes that can blend, or pick up some of the common colors that are in your love items? Keep looking for common denominators. You can put pottery with china, crystal with glass, silver with brass, pewter, copper. A dough bowl in a formal china cabinet can calm it down. The same as it does on your dining room table. Think texture. Baskets with china is very nice and iron with crystal works well too. Fear Not!!! The important thing is you and how you make it happen.
There are some rules that I follow. If you’re dealing with glass shelves don’t put things with lots of volume that take up a lot of visual space on the top shelf. Reserve those items for the bottom shelf. These are things like heavy books, large bowls, pottery, baskets etc. You don’t want to block the light, you want to create an atmosphere that will allow that light to filter thru the cabinet.
In my kitchen you can see how the light doesn’t quite make it to the bottom shelf. In this cabinet there is a variety of items, The common denominator is black and white. Courtly Check Chargers from Mackenzie Childs serves as the backdrop for the Villeroy Boch Ferme Dishes. Imagine just the dishes without the chargers. The scale of the chargers helps to support the shelf space.Then I started layering. Antique black leather books, a pewter bowl with pears creates a punch color, while pantry staples in new canisters support the neutral color palette. A yellow glass pitcher adds an ethereal quality while a small stoneware jug with greenery adds interest. See how the light plays off the pitcher then bounces you down to the small bowl with berries, and down to the pears, whereas the eggs on the bottom replicates the shape of the bowl of pears on a smaller scale. On the bottom shelf a happy accident when I just gathered the marmalade and anchovy paste jar and eggs onto the antique pewter platter just to get them off the counter! I embraced it.
Tip We built this cabinet years ago. While doing some remodeling in the kitchen we had can lights put in and I had one added to this cabinet as well, on a dimmer. I also had an outlet added so if I wanted to add a small electric appliance I could. Comes in handy during the holidays. This built-in also originally had wood shelves, I went to a local cabinet shop and asked them to build shelf frames for me. I needed a rabbit ledge to accommodate the glass insert and that was a bit above my skill set at the time. I also asked them to cut 2 grooves in the back of the frames to accommodate plates to keep plates and platters from tipping. Then I took the frames over to my glass people and they put the glass in for me. I could have just added new glass shelves and that would have been cheaper but the wood frames add structure back into the cupboard but allows the light to filter.
Are you looking at your stuff? What do you see? Have you found your common denominators yet? Are you seeing a trend towards the type of thing that you like? Are you excited?
Now that you can see what you want to include in your cabinet I will give you some how to’s in the next post. I hate to leave you hanging but this is the nuts and bolts of styling a china cabinet.
Feel free to send me pictures of your cabinets in comments and the items you would like to use in it. I will see if I can help.
Thanks for stopping! Stay tuned for part 2
Shelley
