Top Decoration

I am so happy to be able to say that this project is complete!

But, if I said that the painting portion was "easy", I would be lying.

Nothing easy or quick about it, but in the end, totally and completely worth it.


Let's go back to the beginning and remember where this project started...

In my never ending desire for change, I needed to find an answer for where I could use the top of my hutch that previously sat in my kitchen. After owning it for 10 years, I decided that I wanted to use the base as a stand-alone sideboard between our family room and kitchen.

The answer came in the form of creating an armoire in Ellison's room, using her existing dresser as the base and placing the top of my hutch on her dresser.

The look of the two pieces together certainly wasn't pretty, but I couldn't beat the functionality of the overall piece...

Originally, the hutch came with glass doors. Perfect for displaying all of our stemware and dishes in our kitchen, but not so pretty when I turned it into my "linen closet"...

I'm sure that eventually this will hold more of Ellison's ever growing wardrobe, but for now, all of the kids' clean bedding is in one out of the way and easy to store space. I just needed a way to conceal it all from view...

The glass in the doors was held in place by these...

and I noticed that the thickness of the glass seemed pretty close to the thickness of beaded board. Lucky for me, we had just enough beaded board (left over from a previous project out in the garage) to cut and place in each door of the hutch, and insert into the door of the existing dresser.

Seriously - I love it when that happens!

We measured and cut the beaded board using the glass as our template...

and then put each panel into place.

This part was easy!

Perfect!

Everything tucked away behind closed doors.



On to the painting...

I put two coats of primer on the hutch and one coat on the dresser. I figured that the closer the two pieces were to having the same color of base coat, the easier it would be to paint the whole piece overall. It was definitely the right choice. I let the primer coats dry overnight before moving onto painting.

The first coat of paint took 3 solid hours to put on. There are so many nooks and crannies, angles and grooves that it just made for a long process. There was no way around it.

The second coat took two hours and I was hoping (*hoping-hoping*) that I wouldn't have to do a third.

Will and I took a good, hard look at it after the second coat had dried and were pleased with the results!

Out of two old pieces of furniture, we now have one brand new piece of furniture...

We removed the original hardware from the hutch doors and added the same knobs that were on the dresser. We sprayed all of the knobs and pulls with a few coats of "Candy Pink" spray paint and now this "new" piece of furniture feels right at home in our little girl's room...

I love the idea of Ellison having a vanity in her bedroom. A spot where she can look in the mirror, brush her hair, put in her clips and bows and be a girly-girl. I think the space between the hutch and the dresser makes for a perfect vanity...

We are so happy that:

1. The project was a success.
(We both had our fair share of doubt)

2. We were able to save a piece that was no longer usable for us in the way that it had been intended, and instead of getting rid of it, fashioned it into something new that we will be able to use for many years to come.

Like I said, it was a lot of work in the painting department, but absolutely worth it.

Sometimes thinking outside of the box can result in some of your best project ideas!


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P.S. I am posting this at:

Between Naps On The Porch, Motivate Me Monday,
Just Something I Whipped Up, DIY Day,
Get Your Craft On, Trash To Treasure, Tip Me Tuesday, Tackle It Tuesday,
Talented Tuesday, DIY Project Parade, "Power Of Paint" Party,
"Show Me The Progress" Party, "Be Inspired" Link Party,
Transformation Thursday, Thrifty Thursday,
100 Ideas Under $100, Get Your Craft On Thursday,
Strut Your Stuff Thursday, Make It Yours Day, Show Off Your Stuff,
Furniture Feature Friday, Frugalicious Friday, Show And Tell,
Creative Cats, Inspired Rooms, Saturday Nite Special,
Shop The House Sunday,