Blue Kitchen Hutch

Our kitchen is in between spaces and is a bit small and dark. I have had this photo saved on my phone of a bright and colorful dining area that I wanted to use as inspiration to bring some life into our space. 

I love the rustic Scandinavian style with pops of color from the artwork, chairs, the cabinet and pillows and all the textures in the space. It feels warm and inviting and curated to reflect the people who live there.

Because of the personal look of this space, I don’t want to copy it item to item, but to take inspiration from it and have our space reflect us and things I’ve collected over the years. (I’ve got plenty of art and nic-nacs to curate from!)

So far we already have some art on the walls, and after we broke 3 kitchen chairs in our last move, I found a set of old restaurant chairs and painted those with a tomato red paint to match the chairs in the inspiration photo. I love the pop of color they added to our kitchen. It’s been over a year since I painted them, and they have held up really well without any paint chipping or scratching off. I’m still undecided if I want to upholster them to look similar to the inspiration photo. I don’t know. What do you think? I have some geometric green fabric that I purchased already but haven’t gotten around to doing anything with it yet. 

Here in this photo I had gotten some cushions from Ikea, but they were too small and I returned them. You can also see the dark brown hutch in the back that we had in our kitchen to begin with.

The walls in our kitchen are painted a light gray. The walls in the inspiration photo are light green, and I feel like in our dark kitchen, white walls or some brighter color, like a cream would brighten the mood a bit. But that is another project for the future...

The big project I wanted to accomplish this summer was the blue China cabinet. I had been looking for a cabinet with similar bones as the one in the inspiration picture on-and-off for over a year. When this one popped up, while it wasn’t perhaps perfect, it was close enough at a great price, so I went and picked it up. 

For the big blue makeover, I started by taking the doors and shelves off to make everything easier to clean, sand and paint. I remember what a PITA the chairs were to sand and paint, and thought this would be easier, but I underestimated (again) how much time it was going to take because two sides to everything and having to wait for coats of paint to dry in between.

The concept of refinishing this cabinet was very simple though.

1.      Wiped down to remove grease and dirt.

2.      Sand with a pad sander.

3.      Wipe everything down to remove dust.

4.      Paint a coat of primer. I used Zinsser primer that has a shellac base. It dries very fast and is nice to sand.

5.      Lightly sand and wipe clean.

6.      Paint second coat of primer.

7.      Lightly sand and wipe clean.

8.      Realize you forgot to do a second coat to other sides of doors, so paint those and sand.

9.      Fix any spots that I over sanded…

10.  Paint a coat of blue top coat. 

11.  Lightly sand and wipe clean

12.  Paint a second coat

13.  Fix areas that I missed and turn cabinet doors and paint the other sides.

14.  Lightly sand and wipe clean.

15.  Add a clear coat of Minwax Polycrylic

16.  Add a second coat of clear coat in case I missed any spots.

 

Doors being painted

The back of the cabinet had a mirror, which I just painted over to cover it up.

Adding drawers to the bottom half.

I also wanted to make the bottom of the cabinet more useful, and decided to build drawers for it. We had an assortment of scrap wood in the garage, so I only needed to order drawer tracks to complete 5 drawers for the bottom. I installed 3 drawers into the left side and 2 for the right side. While exact measurements aren’t my strong suit, I managed to build and install 5 drawers that pull out effortlessly. Now it’s easy to fill the space all the way to the back and still be able to reach everything.  

After the drawers were built and put into place, we hauled the cabinet in place, and attached the doors. I still need to purchase a new set of door pulls as some were missing, but I put a few place holder knobs from the garage on there now, until I find some pulls that I like. 

I love the way the cabinet looks in our kitchen, and how it brightened the corner up, from the old open dark cabinet that we used to have before. It adds color and personality to the kitchen and I’m so glad I put the effort into it. I still need to build a few shelves for the inside to display some of our mugs and things better, but for now I’m really pleased with how everything looks. That will be a project for after Christmas.

If you are thinking of doing a similar project, here are my top tips and thoughts:

-         Cabinets can be heavy, so have a friend or spouse to help with moving your item. 

-         Look for one that splits in half so its easier to move.

-         Sanding and painting wasn’t complicated, but it is time consuming and tedious.

-         Keep an eye out for door and shelf edges when painting so you don’t get big drips that dry up as globs on the edges.

- Make sure to wear a mask so you are not breathing in the fine dust from sanding. 

 

-         I already filled the hutch with things I like to look at. They are not organized perfectly, but everything is a work in progress. It's better than what it was before. 

      I also snapped closer ups of the things we have on the adjoining walls. I love the bright and cheerful colors in the artwork and the Marimekko tray and Cuckoo clock from Germany. The square grid framed piece on the bottom left is a favorite thrift find. It's a framed vintage handkerchief that has calorie counts different foods. It gives me a chuckle to look at it and see the (inaccurate) counts they have for foods. 

      Hope you enjoyed this adventure into cabinet makeovers. I hope to intersperse the blog with new print stories and decorating projects I'm working on.