Because I'm me, I used to have two china hutches. I know, excessive. When we downsized I gave my daughter one of them. All along I planned to use the remaining one, which holds a LOT and simply paint it to go with my cottage look.It's a great hutch and I liked it a lot.
I wanted a really long table in our now really big kitchen, so I began a tentative hunt. My husband shops for salvage building material at Habitat for Humanity, and I was along with him one day when I saw a table the perfect size. All the furniture that day had come from model homes and was spankin' new. New is good, if it doesn't LOOK new. Yeah, I know.
So anyway the table was part of a set with yellow-flowered fabric chairs that were so not my thing. I asked if they'd split the set. This was on a Saturday. The manager said if they were still there on Wednesday, they would sell me the table alone. I went back on Wednesday and snapped it up.
I called Jay and he suggested I give the matching hutch a second look. I didn't think it was my style the first time I saw it. But I looked again. Wow, Broyhill. A really nice piece. "Why not get one that doesn't have to be painted and the back removed and all that?" he asks. "And it matches." Well, I'm not all about matching either. In fact, that's not a plus for me. But I decided okay and even talked them down to a cheaper price.
My wonderful husband had to make two trips with his pickup over the next two days to bring both pieces home. Yet more stuff in the garage where my car used to fit.
"Well, " says I. "This hutch has mirror in the back, and I had my heart set on red bead board."
"Okay," says Mr. Wonderful. "I'll take out the mirror and give you bead board."
"And," says I. "It has glass shelves, and glass shelves aren't my style. I need painted wood."
"Okay," says Mr. Wonderful. "I'll take out the glass and make wood shelves."
"And it's white, but it's not the white that goes with the rest of the kitchen. It's not MY white."
"I knew this was coming," says Mr. Irritated. "You mean to tell me I talked you out of the old hutch that needed the back replaced and painting and into a new hutch that was perfect -- just so I could replace the back and shelves and you could paint it?"
That pretty much summed it up. The rest of this story takes about two months.
So I painted the table and hutch fudge chocolate brown. A yummy color. And then I took a candle and rubbed wax over all the corners and edges. I then painted it three coats of white. My white.
And then, with a great deal of elbow grease and determination I sanded off the places where I wanted the brown to show through for a distressed look. I actually love it.
Unfortunately it doesn't hold near as much stuff. :-(
And then there are the awesome knobs. Note the reproduction glass knobs I found. (The wood ones had to go.) I bought them during the refinishing process and tucked them away until the hutch was finished.
CLICK TO ENLARGE to full awesomeness
I never saw them again. Not even after hunting and tearing the room apart. They're somewhere safe I have no doubt. So I bought them again.And it's now finished. Well, except for a teeny weeny coat of acrylic or polyurethane, so the finish doesn't get scraped up.
ha ha. That was a joke.
Oh, and my son and daughter-in-law got my old hutch. They already had the table.
