Hutch to Bar Renovation

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Okay, so I'm pretty sure the below picture is how this whole hutch to bar renovation project came over me.  It's been a long time since I first got the idea in my head, but I think the below inspiration came to me via way of Cottage Living magazine (RIP).  I remember reading the story, and the owner stated that the piece was an old family heirloom.  She gave the outer coat a new shine and painted the inside this pretty shade of blue, and voila!  It was re purposed for a bar.

My inspiration

Once Jon and I purchased a home, I quickly became waaaay more than ever into the whole antiquing thing.  I couldn't keep myself away from flea markets, antique stores and the like, and so shortly thereafter I found the below piece at Sleepy Poet Antique Mall on South Boulevard.  This is the best place to shop multiple antique retailers all under one roof.  I immediately felt that it had potential.  The thing I liked most were the glass window pane doors.  I won't tell you what I paid for it.  I cringe a little now thinking about it.  I did ask if the vendor could do better than the sticker price, and he did, so that was a bit of a win.  However, I still could have paid much less.  In hindsight, it was a good learning experience.  The only way to learn and grow is through practice!

My Hutch

So, my new hutch sat in our equally not so pretty and empty living room.  For years, it was the only piece of furniture in the room, aside of all my son's toys.  Then, the time finally came when I would rip the band aid and get a living room!  Eh hem... this does not mean go out and get, this means make.  I did purchase a few of the main items, but there is a lot of blood, sweat and tears in that room.  At any rate, you can see in the below picture where the make over began.  The piece was terribly ragged in appearance... All's she needed was a little face lift, if you will.  So, I began by taping off the window panes and filling in all the little holes and indentations with wood filler.  Fairly time consuming...

My hutch with a little ace bandage and pimple healer.

Chippy all over

The hutch is two pieces, a top and bottom, so it had to be dismantled.  The next step was to sand and paint.  I decided to go with a darker color.  I knew from the beginning I wanted to do some fun color or pattern on the inside of the glass doors, and I wanted it to really pop.  So, I went with the color we have used on all of the doors in our house, Bronze Tone.  I had some left over, so yay, no money spent on paint!  I should add that at this point I really did not want to spend another dime on this hutch.  I LOVE all things pink, so I decided on this bright shade of coral for the inside of the drawers and lower cabinet.  I made it all the way up until this point before roping most wonderful man in the world into my project.

Jon getting involved is actually a VERY good thing.  The man can do anything, and he's kind of a perfectionist, so this means it will look even better.  All the hardware was showing its age, and he decided the hinges needed to go.

Dirty old hinges

So we head on over to our home away from home, Black Hawk Hardware, and went searching for new hinges. They didn't have a match. Wow... might be a first that they didn't have what we needed. Jon researched and found a group on line that would shine up our hinges like new for $8 a pop.  That's $64 in shiny new (old) hinges.  Thanks, but no thanks.  So, he kept on researching until he found a solution.  And...who knew that soaking your hardware in ketchup and scrubbing for 20 minutes with a Brillo pad would have your hinges looking so shiny and new?...

Holy Smokes!  Now, that there's a shiny hinge!

Might make you want to rethink offering ketchup at your next neighborhood cook out, but again, look at that shiny hinge!  Moving right along... the next step was to pick out new outer hardware for this really starting-to-look-handsome piece of furniture.  This is where I was prepared to spend a little bit of money.  I looked at all your traditional hardware stores and ended up going with these pretty natural bone and brass pulls and knobs from Anthropologie.

Pretty new hardware from Anthropologie

Next up was to tackle the back inside wall of the hutch.  This is where I was really hoping to have some fun.  I thought about covering it with wallpaper or even wrapping paper, painting a design or painting a stencil, which is ultimately the direction we went. My taste seems to be fairly ever-changing these days, but for now I'll call it "Boho Glam".  It's kind of like my dress.... a little bohemian, a good bit glam, timeless, not trendy.  I love the glamour and elegance of old Hollywood, and so after doing quite a bit of research on line, I found the perfect stencil at Royal Design Studio.  Appropriately enough, the stencil is named Hollywood Squares. I knew I wanted to use a metallic paint, either silver or gold.  I found the below Martha Stewart Living paint over at Home Depot. It was offered in a plethora of metallic finishes, and I decided I was going gold!

Martha Stewart paint from Home Depot

Using a roller, we (or rather most wonderful man in the world) first painted the back of the hutch wall with our Bronze Tone.  We then taped down the stencil with painters tape and painted over it with the metallic  paint.  When the paint was dry, we peeled it up, and this is what we got...

A big ole crackly mess.

At this point, I was starting to be a little concerned my stencil might not work out as planned.  So I called Royal Design Studio, and as it turns out, this is a common issue with metallic paint.  They actually sell a special metallic paint for stencil work.  Not wanting to spend any more time or money, I decided to just reverse the stencil.  So, most wonderful man in the world was back at it with the paint and roller, this time painting the wall with the metallic and then the stencil on top in the Bronze Tone.  And, Hurray!... Beautimous!!

Yay!  Gorgeous back wall of my hutch!

Time to start putting this handsome devil back together!  That's me gettin' down in my jammies... With two small children, we were working on this late into the night many, many nights. Thank you again most wonderful man in the world for sticking with me through all my crazed projects! xo

Watch out!

 Almost there, and totally loving the way he is smiling back at me...

Top half all dolled up

... and.... TAADAAAAAAA!!!  Super duper excited!!

What do you think??...      

Now I just need to get this baby stocked with all kinds of fun things to get the party started!  I'll bring you some pics of that in my next post.  Thanks for reading.  Hope you have an o so stylin' day!  Whitley