FREE TO A GOOD HOME...

I am a bargain kind of gal, if there is a way to do something for less than others think humanly possible then I am all for it.  So, one day when I received a text from a friend of mine asking if I wanted an old cabinet that she had stored in her garage, I naturally said YES and drove right over to take a look at it.  It was FREE to a good home as her husband was sick of looking at it and having to move it, park next to it…well, you get the picture.  This little once white hutch had two crumbling drawers and 4 cabinet doors, two solid ones below and two with glass inserts above along with several pealing layers of paint.  Naturally I was excited and instantly determined where its new place in my home would be.  Emily would become the lucky recipient of this new treasure upon its completion.  Here is the basic process used to come up with the end result:  Take off the old hardware only to discover the only thing holding this hutch together was a little old paint because all the original nails had rusted.  Nail gun the hutch back to a reliable piece of furniture and sand it down.  Not too much, just enough to get all the chipped paint off but still leave the integrity of the beautiful aged piece intact.  The color scheme for this piece was to be turquoise and white so, apply turquoise paint around the edges of the cabinets and around the layers of paint then let it dry.  Paint over the entire thing with several coats of white paint and hand sand it down until just the right about of turquoise shows through each section.  Next was a light wash with watered down turquoise paint over the entire hutch and to finish it off I dry brushed fresh coats of white on top of that to enhance the layered look.  My intention al along with this piece was to still have it look just as old as when it arrived to me but be fresh and in usable condition. The door treatments were a little more complicated but I love that you can draw (literally) inspiration for a piece from ANYWHERE!  This particular pattern came from a car I say at the Starbucks drive through one day while running errands.  After tracing out a mini example of the design I cut it out of a piece of cardboard and began to trace and layout the pattern on the door panels.  I repeated the same process on the glass doors but traced it onto clear contact paper that I covered the doors with and then used an etching paint to frost the design onto the glass.  The effect was everything I hoped it would be.  Finally time to reassemble with original hinges and then add new knobs.  I choose brushed nickel for the drawers and crystal for all of the cabinet doors.  All in all the grand total for this project was right at $6 and that was for the clear contact paper that I did not already have on hand.  Each time I refinish a new piece of furniture whether it is for my home or someone else’s it becomes my new favorite piece, the same is true in this case.  I just LOVE the end result and hope that you al do too.  If you have anything that you would like re-done for your home please keep me in mind, I would love to create something new out of an old treasure for you!