I found, at a yard sale, a 1920's singer sewing machine that had been electrified, in a cabinet that probably dates from the early 60's. It was $50, so I snatched it up. I cleaned up the machine, removed the motor, and gave it to my mother for Christmas, to place in her treadle cabinet, since she needed a working machine for her refurbished cabinet, and excluding a treadle belt (which we still have not purchased), this machine works. So my mother is delighted with this new machine, and I now have a cabinet that although slightly beat up, is of a better quality than the cabinet for my avocado green 1960's Kenmore machine (which still works quite well, but is rather unattractive (to say the least)) So I decided that I am going to refinish this cabinet and place *my* machine in this "new" (to me anyway) cabinet, since my cabinet is in really bad shape: the board tilts, the finish is gone, and there are tons of water marks from endless glasses sweating in the heat, forgotten in the middle of a project.

So I pulled out all my nasty chemicals and stripped the "new" cabinet. (It had been taken apart the summer before). Then I sanded the cabinet, and when I was done sanding I stained the cabinet a red mahogany (the same stain I used for my dining room table last summer) it turned out beautifully. The I added multiple coats of polyurethane, sanding between each coat, because I wanted to do a good job, and because a sewing machine cabinet can get a lot of abuse. So I came home and decided that it looked pretty good even if I do say so myself; there were few bubbles but the polyurethane is thick enough to hold up for years. So put the cabinet back together (mind you, it was taken apart a year previously, so this is an exciting puzzle) lug the cabinet upstairs to my sewing room and...

...my machine won't fit in the cabinet.

(sigh)

On the bright side, I had a project to keep me out of trouble for almost a week, and I lost nothing but time since I already had the stripper, sanding paper, stain and polyurethane on hand. (sigh)

In the end, I gave the cabinet to my mother. We don't have the space for it in our new house, so she's using it as an endtable in her sewing room. Ah well.