Hutch project

When Craig and I got married my friend Ann and her family gave us some money as a wedding present. Most of the monetary gifts we were given went towards things like apartment rent, food etc. lol but she is a dear friend and I wanted to buy something that would remind me of her. So I bought some white dishes. She is wonderful like the color white and she loves beautiful table settings. Pretty dishes remind me of her actually so I took some of my own and added it to her contribution and bought 12 place settings. That is a lot more than Craig and I needed lol and consequently they have been sitting in my closet in 4 big boxes since then. I have been waiting to buy a hutch to put them in, but hutches SO OVER PRICED! I don’t understand why they cost so much, but it has taken me 5 years to find one. Our neighbor had a garage sale one day however and when I went over to investigate I found this piece. The doors, shelves, trim etc. are all solid wood, it has its original glass shelves, hardware and glass door panels (which is rare in old hutches, that is why people often use chicken wire), had a display light inside and has had the same owner since he bought it brand new in the early 70’s. Downsides to the piece were that it smelled like cigarette smoke (can’t handle even a tiny bit of that smell) and the side panels are a compressed wood with veneer. He had it originally posted for around $150.00 I believe, it’s actually slipping my memory, but he had already come down a little but it was still more than I wanted to pay. I have a very strict budget that I am trying to operate on right now for house projects, but I had sold a text book online the day before (score!) for $53.00 so as I was walking away I thought I’d just take a shot and I said, “well it is a wonderful piece of furniture, and I could take it off of your hands for $50.00 if you wanted!” To my surprise he said sure and I sent husband over to fetch it. 

Thanks for "fetching" things for me Mr. Taylor :)

Okay, so now for the restoration. This piece looks really simple, but it was a fairly large project. To get rid of the smell I left it in the garage to air out and cleaned it really well with soap and water and then with vinegar. The vinegar worked MAGIC! Long after the vinegar smell wore off I still couldn’t smell any smoke at all, which made me really happy.

 Next, husband helped me disassemble the whole thing, and then we were ready for the fun part. 

 I couldn’t use regular paint on it because of the side panels so we bought a special primer that Rustoleum makes and I coated it with that first. It was horrible, thick, oil based stuff, the word “gloopy” comes to mind, and even after intense sanding you can still see the brush strokes on the sides if the lighting is right. I don’t recommend it for that reason HOWEVER, it did work really well. It adhered in a very big way, and if I were to inspect it now for the first time I would never guess that it wasn’t solid wood. So it did do its job, it was just a really messy one. As afore mentioned I sanded it really well next; it sanded almost like plaster or something, white dust everywhere! I also sanded down and painted the cupboard doors and trim, so basically everything but the back piece.

 After that was done we decided on a pretty flat grey color, and I added some plaster of paris to turn it into chalk paint. Homemade chalk paint, I DO recommend my only caution would be mix WELL and I spent a total of 8 hours in my garage in what someone told me later was 116 degree heat and it dried REALLY fast on me. I was kind of in a rush or I would have waited for cooler weather. But it worked!!! I moved it in doors after that though, because I didn't want the wax I was using to be affected. 

Next I used a clear wax and went over the entire piece, inside and out. After that I felt like there was just too much grey everywhere so I took some leftover white chalk paint that I had, and a cup of plain water and dipped my brush first in the water and next into the paint and brushed it on in small sections. I then took an old rag and smeered and smoothed the paint, leaving more in cracks and less on the forward surfaces. I actually ended up going back with a kids paint brush and put more white in the cracks that way. It was a lot of detail work, but was totally worth it. I LOVE the look it gave! I like this better than just using dark antiquing wax because it lightened and brightened my piece while still aging it a little, instead of just giving it a dirty old type of look. When that was dry I went over the piece a second time in the clear wax, this time only going over where I had put the white. I left the inside a solid grey, so I only waxed the outside on the second go round. After that I wanted it to be aged just a tiny bit more so I made up a batch of dark antiquing wax, which is just clear wax that I melted, added wood stain to, and then let cool. I took an old sock, filled it with some of the dark wax I had made (saved 20.00 by making my own by the way) and went over the piece very sparingly. Because I was not going to actually distress this piece with sand paper, I didn’t want it to look TOO old, and I didn’t want to ruin the light airy feminine feel that it has. LOVE the result! Okay, so the only thing left was to decide what to do with the back. This took a while as husband and I each had very different ideas, but we finally got a chance to do some fabric searching together and settled on this upholstery fabric design.

 I love it! I think it was the elegant touch that it needed! And there are no flowers on it which made husband happy. ;)

 To do this part I just laid the fabric out, ironed it very well, used a fabric adhesive to tightly stick it to the backing and then stapled it on with an upholstery staple gun. After that there was nothing left to do but assemble the whole thing back together. Husband stepped in to help with this part too, we make a good team. ;) 

All of this, and more has been sitting on my counter for over a week from this one project. lol 

The majority of the dishes will have to wait until the new house but I had a couple plates unpacked and I couldn't resist testing them out in there. Can't wait to see the rest!

What projects have you been working on, I would love to see?!