Whew, this post has been a long time coming. We bought this amazing hutch on Craigslist for $80! What a steal that was. I have to admit, we’ve kind of become Craigslist pros with this move to Kansas. We were able to buy brand new kitchen appliances for $1,000 less than Nebraska Furniture Mart quoted us (same exact models), our nursery furniture (more on that later!), and a riding lawn mower. Score, score and score! There really is a sense of accomplishment when getting a great deal on something that completes a space, or lawn in the case of the mower.

This hutch has a purpose in our new house. First of all, we had the perfect space for a large piece of furniture, and secondly, I was wanting a place to display all of my pretty platters and bowls that I rarely use. It’s also been a great way to store some extra things that we don’t necessarily want displayed but need to access, like chargers, batteries, etc.

Let’s get to the fun stuff. Refinishing this hutch was a lot of fun and is a piece we will have in our home forever. We’re in love with it!

To start with, here’s a list of items you will need to complete a furniture re-do like this:

You’ll Need:
Solid wood hutch
Paint- we used Glidden with primer
Electric sander (or muscles and heavy grit sand paper)
Spray paint- black
A wood finisher- I used Howard Citrus-Shield Wax
Good paint brushes and rollers
Screw driver

This is how we bought the hutch. It’s cute…but it definitely needed some love.

And this is the paint that we used. You definitely don’t need to use this brand, but I would suggest a paint with primer in it. It makes application much, much easier.   The first step was to remove all the hardware, drawers and doors.

Then I used the trusty Shop Vac to clean the sucker up.

I used the sander on literally every surface- top, inside, sides, drawers, and doors

And we used this black, satin Krylon spray paint for all of the hardware. Once it was all sanded, I wiped the whole hutch down with a microfiber cloth before painting. I wanted to make sure there wasn’t any dust left behind that would show up in the white paint.

Let the painting begin!

I will admit, this project took a whopping three coats of paint. Let’s just say I wanted it to be perfect, so the third coat may or may not have been necessary. It definitely gives it the finished, professional look I was going for. It was finally time to put the hardware back on…

I knew that the finished product was going to to need a good sealant to keep all of those scratches and marks at bay. I decided to go the natural route and used a wood wax.
To apply this wax, I used a clean cloth. I started out with a thin coat of it to see how it applied. I used the most wax on the top since it will be getting the most wear and tear. On the rest of the hutch, I just applied a thin coat of wax.

And this is the bottom half, done!

Eric worked on the top half of the hutch while I was gone one afternoon, so we no pictures of that process. BUT, I will assure you, he followed the exact same process as I outlined above. We decided to take off the glass doors that came with it originally, so he patched the holes with some wood filler.

Now, to go along with my Spring Cleaning segment, I’ll show you how I spruced up the inside of the hutch to make it functional for our family!

I used contact paper from the Dollar Tree to line the drawers.
The I used these little plastic baskets (also from the Dollar Tree) to separate our chargers. Each one gets a clothespin label to specify what device it belongs to (see how I organized our electronics here).

The drawers aren’t totally full yet, which I’m actually loving. I’m sure once the babe gets here, we’ll acquire more things that will be stored in the hutch.

The decorations are a constant work in progress. I find myself changing things up almost on a daily basis. I’m sure the theme will be ever-evolving with the season and my mood. 

And just as a reminder.

Final Product!

So, that’s not so scary, right? I think that the idea of refinishing a piece of furniture can be daunting. Hopefully this how to paint a hutch tutorial took some of the guess work out of it and gave you the inspiration you needed to get started on your own piece!