This DIY refinished china hutch was such a fun project to work on!
As most of y’all know, we’ve been packing up to move all summer. We’ve been doing projects around the house, organizing and cleaning out closets, and lots of other work towards getting our house ready to sell.
After open houses, home tours, inspections, negotiations and all that jazz… we are under contract on a house we’re buying and under contract with the house we’re selling!
At the moment, it looks like we’ll be moving in just about a month! So we’re on the homestretch!
We are very excited for our new house! It’s not totally “move in ready” so we’ll have plenty of DIY projects to show you once we close!
Besides the obvious of packing up our current house, I’ve been trying to get some projects done on some pieces before we’ll move since we’ll have so much to do once we’re in the house.
A few weeks back, I wrote a tutorial that included some tips on painting furniture. (In case you missed it, here’s the post!).
My aunt just moved into a new house herself and gifted me a beautiful china hutch that has been in our family for many, many generations and apparently survived the Chicago fire of 1871!
(I’ll be sure to include some photos of the burn marks it left over in my part 2 post!)
Ever since we were handed down the hutch, I knew I wanted to give it a fresh, updated look. But I didn’t have an exact plan in my head quite yet.
PLANS FOR OUR NEW HOME
When we were touring our new house, we discovered a short hallway from the dining room to the kitchen. On either side, it had two open closets (one of which was a pantry) that once had sliding, folding doors.
My husband, Matt, and I, of course, started discussing what we would do with this area. We decided we’d like to put doors back on the pantry but Matt had a great idea for the other side of the closet.
Instead of putting doors back on the other closet, he thought we could make it a butler’s pantry of sorts!
I LOVED this idea! We originally thought about putting in cabinetry down the road but honestly that sounded like a lot of work to me!
While we were brainstorming, I suggested that we just put a large dresser in there or something along those lines, and use it as a counter. We could possibly put some shelves up above it too.
Then I remembered our china hutch! We immediately agreed that we could just slide it in and use it as a butler’s pantry.
HOW TO PAINT IT
Now that we knew where we were going to put it, we needed to decide how we were going to paint it!
I knew I wanted to paint it white but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to paint every single inch of it white or leave any accent pieces or what! Too many options! Haha!
We also had to decide if we wanted to leave the glass doors on the top of the hutch or remove them for a more “open shelf” feel.
While Matt was taking the hutch apart for me to paint, he realized the top was basically just a separate piece. This gave him an even better idea of actually mounting this top portion of the hutch to the wall itself to act as built in cabinetry.
This would give us even more counter space and basically add another shelf!
Now that this was all decided, I knew which way to go with our paint design!
Both pieces would be painted white, but I’d leave the top “counter” and shelves unpainted so I could stain them.
Just as I said in my tutorial post on painting furniture, I prepped the hutch by taping and covering spots I didn’t want white. The glass windows were the main focus here, as well as the top of the bottom half so it could be stained.
I also wrapped some of the latches and hardware with painters tape too so it stayed protected.
Because I needed the piece to be finished in one day, I used spray paint knowing the coats would dry fast and smooth. I went through about 8 cans to give it a solid, thick coat of paint over the wood.
This is as far as I got this weekend! All the white has been painted!
All that’s left to do (besides hanging the top portion once we move in) is to add some updated hardware for the drawers as well as the cabinets and stain the unpainted top and shelves!
Once we move in and add those finishing touches, I’ll update y’all with part 2! Be sure to subscribe for updates!
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Have you painted a piece of furniture? What method have you tried? I’d love to hear from you! Shoot me an email! Be sure to subscribe below so you don’t miss a thing as well as follow me on Instagram and Pinterest!
Great idea! Can’t wait to see the finished product once installed!