Dinig Hutch Makeover

Isn't she pretty? This is by far one of my favorite makeovers so far! It definitely took a lot more time than I expected but it was well worth it! I was really on the hunt for something for this space and I knew I wanted something with both exposed and hidden storage. When I found this hutch on Craigslist and saw the dimensions, I knew it would be perfect! It's narrow, but deep enough to display my Pottery Barn mason jar dispenser! Here is the Craigslist picture...

I ended up snagging it for $65... I was literally so excited because I love a deal!

When I got it home and in place I knew I wanted to go with a super light paint color for it because it just looked so dark and blah..

I knew this would be difficult to sand and it was so cold out I didn't want to be sanding outside so I ended up using my "go to" Bullseye 123 Primer which sticks to everything!

After one coat of that I used my Americana Décor Chalk Paint in the Cover Everlasting and got to painting!

So this is when I decided I needed to come up with something for the back of the top piece. It is plywood and it wasn't taking the paint how I wanted. So first I was thinking about planking it with 1x3's, but then I came up with using cedar shims...yes shims...We used a lot of these during construction and I always thought they were too pretty to be shoved under uneven floor boards. So I went to home depot and picked up 2 packs, which cost me a grand total of $8. I didn't take any pictures through this part because I honestly was so unsure of it the whole time I was doing it, I thought I had ruined the whole thing!

Here is what it looked like after I was done...

I weaved them in so there weren't straight lines going through, so for the first column every other piece was cut in half. I used wood glue to secure them and for a few of the stubborn ones I actually stapled them to the back piece of plywood. I ended up doing a trim piece on both ends to finish it off! I love the texture it gave and I also thought all my white serving pieces would really pop against the natural cedar color!

Next, I put the doors back on and added some hardware. These knobs are from Hobby Lobby and they look like beach wood so they went perfectly with this piece. I chose not to put knobs back on the top doors to keep it more simple and crisp looking.

Finally I got to style it with a mixture of serving pieces and cute little goodies!

One thing I also did before I painted that you can see here is I put a 1x3 around the bottom as a trim piece because I thought the original trim really dated it!

Here is a close up of the top!

I am Pellegrino obsessed! I think these bottles are the perfect color and add such a nice touch!

So this is where you may look at me like I'm crazy and the reason I needed some closed storage. I constantly need my screw guns, or my nail gun, or I am painting something, and we don't have a garage, so I wanted someplace to store my tools and paint tools that I use often.