Love is Sweet at the Beach

Okay…I’m blogging again, just getting the hang of things. I realized that instead of introducing our house in chronological order, I prefer to jump around. Jumping around on projects is what I’m best at anyway,  just ask my husband. I love to start projects all over the house, and then take a little while to finish them, ha ha. So unless a particular project light’s my fire, it’ll take some time to get finished.

Recently I came across something that really turned me on! Oh yeah it lit my fire, and once I saw it I had to have it! Before I tell you what it is (even though the post title gives it away), I have a secret to confess…after two years of living in our house we have only one room furnished, the living room! The dining room on the other hand has been looking like this for quite a while.

So far all we have is a farm house table I found on Craigslist only twenty minutes after it was posted. Yes, I’m a Craigslist stalker people!  (In a good furniture bargain hunter type of way of course.) We found the 100 year old table for only $600 bucks! It may seem like big bucks but this guy is 96” long, sturdy, and old. Exactly what we were looking to put in our large dining room. And we got him for about a third of the price of his Pottery Barn look alike and a fifth of the price of his Restoration Hardware twin. So we think our table is pretty awesome but, he’s been pretty lonely with only some random chairs keeping him company.

Luckily we found him a friend! This cute 75 dollar Craigslist hutch was just begging to come home and fill a bare corner in our dining room.

Okay, so she doesn’t look that great. She didn’t look all that good before I got to sanding either. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of her original state, but imagine dark shiny wood, drawers, glass doors on either side and some very retro floral drawer pulls. Looked like something straight out of granny’s dining room circa 1980. I think Trevor thought I was crazy, but he dutifully loaded her in our truck and took her home. The above pic is after two days of hardcore sanding to remove all of the shiny finish, and thankfully the musty smell she came with went away with the sanding.

After sanding and washing everything down, I used a brush and roller to apply four thin coats of paint. I used My Color by Pantone in Cloudburst, that I bought at Lowes for about ten bucks. This is the first piece of furniture I’ve ever painted and everything I read regarding painting furniture stressed how important it was to paint many thin coats instead of one gloppy thick coat. So I did two coats one day and two more the second day. It took a lot of time to cover the whole hutch but I only used one 35oz can of paint, which I thought was pretty impressive considering I was painting such a large piece of furniture. I’m so glad I exercised patience and stuck to thin coats because it came out flawless! (In my opinion of course) After the paint dried for 24hrs I sprayed two coats of Rustoleum Ultimate Polyurethane in semi gloss, also from Lowes.I’m not sure if I’ll always feel like putting a poly or varnish on every piece of furniture I paint, but since the hutch will likely have food and drinks on it, since we’re using it as a bar I thought I better protect it. The semi gloss is perfect, not too shiny but makes me feel okay about setting a glass of wine on it.

Anyway enough about paint, here she is all cleaned up and made over. I thinks she’s transitioned quite well from granny to updated and gorgeous! The pictures don’t do her justice, especially because I’m still getting used to my camera.

 Here is another dining room view looking towards the front entry. Even though the dining room can be seen as soon as we walk in the house, the hutch is pretty much hidden from view until you’re in the room, which I think makes for  a nice surprise.

I’m officially in hutch love, and pretty proud of how my first furniture painting project came out. It is definitely starting to feel like the dining room is coming together. In the corner opposite the hutch we’re thinking a little seating area where friends can hang out while we cook would be perfect.

While the hutch makes a great addition to the dining room, the table is in dire need of a proper set of chairs. Luckily I found a set of eight chairs (off Craigslist) that I have great plans for, so stay tuned!

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