Getting my personal HGTV fix

I wasn't planning on a project this summer, it just happened. While we were in Minnesota, a co-worker posted a piece of his mother-in-laws furniture on Facebook. He's been trying to sell it on KSL.com, but no one even called. I began texting him about the dimensions, was it all wood, did it have lights, etc....

It was all oak, had a light bar and was 17" deep. Perfect. Sold. After we got home I had our delivery guys go pick it up and bring it to my garage. I know I have mentioned before how nice it is to have your own personal delivery guys...a seriously nice thing to have. I was a little worried that it might be in good shape and I would feel guilty stripping a nice finish (because I had only seen a facebook picture on my small phone screen), but alas, it was well loved and needed some TLC. So I began the task by removing all the hardware and doors, sanding, taping the mirrors off and priming.

The folks at home depot advised me what paint to buy after I had selected a cream color. I was worried about paint brush strokes so we (Karl) bought a paint sprayer at Harbor Freight and I put plastic sheeting up on the fence and we spent a good portion of a Saturday with the paint sprayer and the hutch. It was a little overcast and threatened to rain, but the rain held off after just a few sprinkles.

All along the way I was learning, I have painted furniture before, but this was the biggest project I have undertaken. After a couple of days the latex paint was still tacky. Not sure why I didn't google this before I began, but learned that you should never use latex paint on furniture because of a problem known as "blocking" in the paint industry. Another paint industry problem, never trust the paint department in your big box hardware stores. Fortunately, the fix was not horrific. I was only concerned about the flat, shelf surfaces because that is what everything will be sitting on. I resanded the top and shelves, reprimed and then repainted with a wonderful alkyd paint from Sherwin Williams. It is an oil based paint so it took 24 hours to dry. Such a nice finish, and the paint is "self-leveling" so there are no paint brush streaks. If I were to do it all over again, I would use this paint all over and hand brush it. I wanted to antique the groves, another new skill. This is a side by side of the before and after of antiquing. It was pretty easy, you use a lot of rags, however.

I was also hunting for hardware everywhere I went, never found anything that had a vintage feel and would go with the leaded glass in the door panels. Then, on one of my daily trips to Home Depot, I saw some hardware displayed in their fake kitchen area- you know with the cabinets all set up in dream kitchen style-and asked if they had these somewhere, it took a while to figure out so I left my phone number and asked them to call when they figured it out. Later in the day, the gal called me and said I could HAVE them!!! Bonus! Apparently they are discontinued.

I love, love, love them. Here is the (mostly) finished product, I lost some screws (ha!) and had to make another trip to the Depot before I could hang the last door, so it is pictured without that door hung.

But this is far from a finished project because now I have to move everything from the old cabinet, move the table in the room, swag the chandelier, find a place for the old cabinet....and on! I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Thanks to my hubby for his help along the way, lifting and hauling and being supportive of my creative itch.