China Cabinet Transforms to Coffee Station

China Cabinet Before 

New Self-Serve Coffee Bar

This is another example of how to redefine what an item of furniture can become by employing a few creative elements, a dash of imagination and a coat of paint. This was a 1980’s era China cabinet which held a collection of, well, China. It likely housed glasses, knick-knacks and crystal. But my daughter had wanted this cabinet to be used at “Roasted” in downtown Marine City’s Water Street as a self-serve coffee station to replace the old coffee bar during the store’s recent design upgrades and painting.

Her vision was to remove the top doors and paint the entire cabinet, then add wood to the interior to match the paneled wood in the restaurant’s bottom portion of the wall that complements the new paint color. She got the idea on Pinterest, but Jim was able to modify the original design to fit the needs of the coffee shop and size of this general cabinet.

He removed the top glass doors (as they were no longer being used) and lined the interior with the same wood panels to match the theme of the newly decorated coffee shop. Jim removed the original front bottom door panels and replaced them with the same panels as the interior. He built a raised platform so the coffee station would be ergonomically sufficient. This also created storage directly beneath for napkins, sugar, stir sticks, etc. The bottom portion would hold coffee cups and other supplies easily reachable but hidden behind the newly fashioned doors. The final updated cabinet was stunning. A ship’s wheel clock was the perfect design element that perfectly tied in with the coffee shop’s new theme and matched the new coffee station perfectly. You can see the cabinet at “Roasted,” which is located at 218 S. Water Street, Marine City, Michigan.