It started ordinarily enough: moving house, she found her mother’s old wardrobe too large to keep and too good to throw away.
She decided to restore it. The work took four weekends and under seven hundred yuan in materials, mostly lining fabric, handles and wood oil.
What she kept
She kept all of the original hardware — hinges, catches and the iron corner plates — removing rust and oiling them. "You cannot buy these the same any more."
The hard part was not the work. It was deciding what to keep.— The restorer
The interior was reconfigured: the original two hanging rails became one rail plus three drawers, matching a wardrobe now dominated by shorter garments.
- Time: four weekends
- Cost: under 700 yuan in materials
- Kept: all original hardware
- Changed: fewer rails, three drawers added
The photographs were widely shared after she posted them. The question she was asked most, she says, was whether it was difficult — and her answer is: "Easier than you think, and slower than you think."
Clearly written, and the section on the data is more solid than most coverage of this.