Hutch renovation

Well Hello Everyone.

I have been  “missing in action,” as they say. I am still doing things around the house that need to be done, including a few fun things, and now that it’s spring, I’m trying to work in the garden and the yard.

Anyway, today I want to share a hutch that a dear friend from our church gave me. It has been sitting in our house for over a year or two; I can’t remember. I finally figured out what I wanted to do with it and want to share it with you. Does anyone else take this long to decide what to do on a project? Just curious.

Unfortunately, I can’t find my original picture with the grids in the windows, so I will insert the picture my friend from church sent me. I think it’s from the 70’s, I could be wrong. My whole idea was to lighten the whole thing up. It was way too dark and showing its age!

I’m a person who loves whites and light grays. You can tell by reading my posts that I don’t deviate much from that color palette! This time was no different!

In the picture above, I know the hutch is not centered but this was the best placement for it to be painted. Just in case you’re wondering, lol, and no, we don’t have trim up!

I think what held me back so long were the doors on the bottom of this hutch! Should I leave them on, take them off, or build new doors? These doors were extremely heavy and well built but the design wasn’t doing it for me and I didn’t know how to build new doors, or even if leaving the doors off would look good. I decided to leave them off and in the end, if I didn’t like it, I could paint the doors and put them back on.

White was the paint of choice. I knew it would look awesome. I also wanted to give it to my daughter to put in her house/apartment when she graduates next month from college. She asked if I could incorporate the color green into it!

 

 

So to start, my husband tore it all apart. He’s good at it! Then it sat forever and ever. A couple of months ago I cleaned it with White Lightning by Dixie Belle. I’m a lazy painter and I hate sanding. That being said, I found a product called Bonding Boss, also by Dixie Bell. It’s a primer with a stain and odor blocker and has adhesion properties that stick to  slick surfaces. Definitely worth checking out.

Here is the first coat of Bonding Boss going on.

If you need your furniture prepped and cleaned, I highly recommend White Lightning.

Bottom of the hutch. First coat of Bonding Boss

Dixie Belle’s Salt Water, 3 Coats

 

If you want to clean the hardware on an old piece of furniture, fill a pan with equal parts water and vinegar, add your hardware, bring to a boil for 10 minutes, when times up take a toothbrush and a cloth and clean the dirt, paint, and grime off.

Sherwin-Williams Sea Salt

Love the grid work on this piece, the doors are off.

Original hardware. Cleaned before and after. What a difference!

 

After everything was cleaned and dried, I painted. I went with Sherwin-Williams Sea Salt on the top and bottom backs of the hutch and for the rest of the cabinet, I used Dixie Belle’s Salt Water. It was a match made in ocean water heaven, lol. I used the original hardware as mentioned above after a good cleaning. I also wanted to replace the seals that went around the windows in the upper cabinet, however, after taking them to our local glass company, they couldn’t locate the same style of seal. They were actually in great shape, except brown, so I just reused them.

My husband put it back together and now see how it looks!

Finished. My husband stripped the lights out of it and we put in under cabinet lights. Highly recommend!

The original handles

 

I love it and I love the colors, and how the white brightens the whole piece! I love that there are no doors and my daughter can leave it that way or add baskets.

My daughter is lucky I am parting with it, I love it that much, plus it goes great in this spot, lol.

So tell me what you think!

Would you leave the doors on? Change the color? Leave it as is?

If you like, please share!