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,

Definition:

Wardrobe - (noun) - A tall piece of furniture that provides storage space for clothes; has a door and rails or hooks for hanging clothes.

Or if we were French, we would call it an armoire.

Either way, I'm tired of calling this new-to-me piece of furniture
"Ellison's dresser-hutch thing".

So let's go with armoire.


Yesterday wasn't quite as productive as I had hoped. Painting furniture with a three year old running around is stressful (at best). Luckily, Ellison got to go play with some of her little girlfriend's for a few hours (Thank You, Kelly!) and I was able to get on one good, solid coat of paint. So, progress is slow and steady. But even though it took way longer than I had hoped it would, I think it's looking great...

Today I'll put on the second coat of paint and hope (with fingers crossed tightly) that it will be good enough not to require a third coat. We'll see.

That's just my impatience talking. I cannot wait to get the knobs back on it and call the project complete!


Thanks for all of your encouragement and kind words from yesterday's post!

Like I've said before...

you guys are the best cheerleader's!

This is day 2 of my current project, and convincing Will that it would actually be successful in the end took a whole lot of smooth talking.

The idea came to me during the holidays last year. I wanted the hutch in my kitchen to be moved because it made for a slightly cramped feeling in our eat-in-kitchen, but there isn't another spot that we could have put it in our home.

So my crazy idea was born out of my desire for change, and Will's absolute refusal to not have to store any furniture out in his shop.

Thanks to my ability to think outside of the box, I got two new pieces of furniture from two old pieces of furniture.

The base of our hutch is now sitting in our family room right next to our kitchen, acting as a buffet and I love it! Can't wait to get some fresh paint on it!

The top of my hutch is now in...


Ellison's room.


Really!

And it looks like this...

Stay with me on this one. I know it doesn't look great right now, but hang on...

Ellison's dresser is the kind that acted as our changing table when she was a baby, but those days are now long gone. That extra drawer on top caused a bit of trouble in making this idea work, but we came up with a solution to keep the top of the hutch supported so that it could sit on top of her dresser. Will built an "L" shaped support to fit directly under the hutch so that once painted, it would visually be a smooth transition from one piece of furniture to the next.


The doors on top used to have glass in them, but we replaced that with left over beaded board that came from a previous project. I am storing all of the kids' bed linens up there, so having closed off doors is a must...

I love my hutch and getting rid of it is something that I'm not ready to do. Not only is it a great, solid piece of furniture, but it was one of the first pieces that Will and I bought after we got married. It has sentimental value to me. Luckily, I still think it's just as pretty as it was the day we bought it. But it has moved from house to house, through four different moves, and in certain areas it definitely shows it. A good coat of paint will have it looking brand new...

By day's end yesterday I had put two coats of primer on the top to even out the colors...

Will and I are heading to Home Depot as soon as I hit "publish" on this post and I'll bring home a gallon of fresh, crisp, white paint. Once the painting is done I'm going to give it a surprise pop of color to help further tie the two pieces of furniture together, and reinforce the girly-girl feeling of Ellison's room.


Don't tell Will, but I had my own secret doubts about this project. I so badly wanted it to work, but I wasn't certain that it would. The last thing I wanted to happen was to end the project with a massive piece of furniture that clearly looked like a crazy idea gone bad.

But I have to say...I think it's going to work!

Even with just the primer on we can already see what it's going to look like in the end.

I'll keep you updated on the progress.


And keep your fingers crossed for me that,

in the end, it all turns out just like I hoped!

Remember the "Free Stuff" Headboard that I found on the side of the road?

My husband declared it a piece of junk and couldn't figure out why I would even bother wasting time on it...

But, persistence pays off!

Look at it now!

I love how it turned out!

My husband built onto it creating a very sturdy bench that spans nearly 5 & 1/2 feet!

Once he was done building, I painted it white and distressed the old and new wood. I stained the exposed new wood to make it look more uniform in the "worn" spots.

Then it got a couple coats of poly, so that it could sit outside on our deck...

I have wire bins that slide underneath holding beach towels for the kids...

I'm tempted to take a picture of it and leave it on the doorstep of the house that the headboard came from! Just so they can see that it didn't go to waste. You know, like that show Junk Brothers where the guys take "Free Stuff" junk, give it a makeover and then take it back the following night so the owner's can enjoy it again!

Except....I won't be giving this back.

I like it too much!

Once again, much love and thanks to my handy-carpenter-husband for making something great!

Do you know that once I got it painted he actually said "wow...it would have been a pretty headboard" to which I had to reply "See! I told you so!"

When will he learn?

So what about you? Find any good junk lately?

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Be sure to head over to Between Naps On The Porch to see even more makeovers in this week's Metamorphosis Monday! And if you feel so inclined, add one of your makeovers to the list!

Many thanks to Susan for hosting this weekly event!

The Junk Headboard on the side of the road that I was
talking about yesterday...

I got it!

I can't believe it was still there!

A full 24 hours had passed and the only things from the "Free Stuff" pile that were left were the headboard and a lonely computer monitor.

I'd say it was meant to be!

When my husband came home last night I said

"Did you see it? Out in the garage?"

and he said

"Ya. It's a piece of junk!"

tsk-tsk...

Ye of little faith!

Keep in mind that's exactly what he said about the black dresser sitting in our entryway that he now loves!

Don't get me wrong, this thing is not pretty right now.

But if you look past what it is and see what it could be...

I have no doubt that it can be...no, it will be something great!

It has some definite worn spots, but like always, I see that as character!

I'm not looking for perfection!

Now the decision lies in whether to keep it as a headboard

OR

re-purpose it as something entirely new!

I'm leaning towards the latter!

It's always more fun to turn things into something unexpected!

Stay tuned...

I have no idea how long it will take, but you can be sure I will be posting the "after" pictures!

Wish me luck with the transformation!