Anyone tried a curio cabinet as an enclosure?

[stapleton33]

I think the common metal rectangle cham cage is functional, but aesthetically boring, so I was trying to come up with clever ways to make a tall, well ventilated, beautifully lit enclosure that wouldn't look like complete garbage in my apartment (I am TERRIBLE at construction) when I realized that what I was trying to build was BASICALLY a china cabinet with screen doors. Hear me out:

Curio cabinets are vertically oriented
The front doors swing open allowing access to the entirety of the interior
The front doors are glass which means the entire thing is a display case
Most have drawers at the bottom for chamcare equipment
They're already wired for lighting FROM ABOVE
It would be permanent - I couldn't possibly need to upgrade to MORE space

So, I buy a gorgeous cabinet from some old couple in town, remove the shelving, cut out the side walls and install screening, replace the bulbs with UVB and heat, fill with a myriad of foliage, and presto! I've got a museum quality enclosure on the inside, with zoo quality viewing from the outside, and I ain't gotta spend a week building a crooked box with screen windows stapled to the outside. Bonus, my girlfriend will totally be on board with decorative furniture over "more lizard trash" taking up floor space in our tiny apartment.

I can't be the first person to have seen a china cabinet and thought "Damn, that's like a giant, fancy cham enclosure being wasted on antique dishes." So does anyone have experience? Or advice? Or cautionary tales? The only practical problem I'm thinking of so far is drainage at the bottom, which i'm sure I can fix easily with a little ingenuity. What about other ingenious cham enclosures? I'm open to all ideas!

Here are some pix for examples (apparently vivarium enthusiasts are already big on doing this)

 

[Tattersb]

Yes, and it works perfectly. Front and back are screen, sides are plexiglass. I added shelves for plants and only drove the screws for the plex in halfway so I can use those to secure vines, Plasti-coated the inside to resist the humidity. I added the door and cut holes in the top for lights and dripper (holes are screened in). Here are before and after images.

 

[K_Wolf]

Yes, and it works perfectly. Front and back are screen, sides are plexiglass. I added shelves for plants and only drove the screws for the plex in halfway so I can use those to secure vines, Plasti-coated the inside to resist the humidity. I added the door and cut holes in the top for lights and dripper (holes are screened in). Here are before and after images.

I'd say it's pretty clever. Lots of good space, very sturdy and reliable, and storage underneath most of them.

 

[Kyle Kruse]

I'm working on one too. I haven't gotten very far in the last few weeks. I'll be working on it again in the next week or two. I was thinking about doing a build thread. Mine is a China Cabinet.