Improving the ugly cupboard - Electrical panel art project - part 3

This last weekend marked the final stage of the Great Electrical Panel Obfuscation Project of 2012 (or GEPOPO 2012).

Before we left the house, I tried to scuff up the front surface of the sign by dragging it face-first down the drive (yes, really). It didn't make much difference though. Curse you, Benjamin Moore and your amazing paint adhesion!

Satisfied that I had tried everything in my arsenal to distress it, I carefully wrapped it up in a tarp, taped it, and even tied it with twine before the captain put it on the roof rack to transport it to the cottage. Not because I wanted to protect it from dings and scrapes, but more because I didn't want to have to wash off a sheen of bug guts when we got there.

Getting it into the boat was fun. It's not exactly tiny, and just moments before I had managed to put out my back, so, ya. Fun.

Crossing to the cottage was even more fun. The winds on the lake were whipping, and the giant panel made an excellent sail. Fun x 2.

Once at the cottage, and with the help of able-bodied Handy Dad and with me spectating from my chair, they set to work removing the pathetic excuse for a cupboard that was making a very poor attempt at hiding the electrical panel.

As expected, it was expertly assembled, with left-over pine tongue-and-groove panelling tacked onto left-over wall panelling (The stuff with the trees printed on it) to form the doors. The outer case was a box made of scrap wood. The triangular hole at the top of the cupboard, created by the too-short wall panelling, was cleverly hidden by a piece of wood that was held in place by the phone wire protruding from the wall.

I am very serious.

This is Handy Dad contemplating the phone wire, which he later coiled up and hid from view within the wall.

With the ugly cabinet down and the hardware removed (3 or 4 types of screw drivers and a pry-bar needed to remove the bits that were hammered in), they added the hinge and fastener hardware to the big sign and hung it up on the wall.

When it's closed, you'd never know there was an electrical panel behind it, and there's no telephone wire poking out into the room anymore, either.

It adds a fun block of colour to a very drab corner, and most importantly, covers up that ugly electrical panel in a much more attractive way.

And it really didn't cost much, so years down the road, when I get sick of it and want something new, I can just haul it down and paint it with something different. Neat!

Here's one more photo taken during the day with my expensive camera and slightly-less-orange lighting (darned cell-phone camera)