Put A Cork In It!

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Remember yesterday's Jewelry Box Makeover?!

As much as I'm sure you guys loved the knob-less jewelry box** (yeah -- right), we had some big dreams for this jewelry box and were determined to make her a true beauty.

**I'm always calling knobs "pulls" and nobody knows what I'm talking about. Grr, okay fine. I'll use the right word, already!


    

I originally intended to pick out some fancy, possibly crystal-esque knobs from a thrift store or Hobby Lobby, but I'm also always looking out for the cheaper solution (in part because I'm stingy frugal, in part because I'm a recent college graduate and am thus poor as dirt).

I've been collecting wine/champagne corks for a while now and realized the champagne corks look a heck of a lot like knobs! They were originally different lengths (see above), but after a quick visit with a serrated knife, that was fixed (see below).

We had a heck of a time figuring out how to attach the cork knobs to the drawers. Ideally, we wanted to put a screw through from the inside of the drawer so that it was poking out a half inch or so on the outside, then just screw the cork onto it. Due to the size and depth of the drawer (and the fact that we didn't have one of those baby-sized screw drivers you think will never come in handy but actually do), this idea was proving to be pretty difficult to make happen. 

In the end, we sucked it up and just put a nail through, starting from the front of the cork. We had a few mishaps with bent nails (does anyone else have an occasional hate-hate relationship with nails?) and we pretty much guessed on centering the nails (using holes from the old hardware as guides), but it turned out quite fancy looking.

Before:

    

After:

Distress
We also ended up distressing the box a bit. Due to the vintage feel of the champagne cork knobs and aluminum, as well as the cut of the box, itself, distressing seemed like the right thing to do.

If you've got dreams of distressing a project in the future, keep in mind that distress should be where an object would naturally be distressed. So, hit those corners and edges (and near where we would touch the knobs) with a hammer.

Here it is, in all its glory. The only expense was a $6.00 can of white spray paint -- which we used for only one coat of paint, so it's got at least another project's worth of spray paint in it.