Out with the Old pt 1

Finally I have pictures of progress in our kitchen.  It has been a long journey, one that took much longer than we all expected.  I guess one has to live life as well as remodel a kitchen lol.  The hutch is complete, the kitchen cabinets (which was a surprise update) are finished.

This has been a labor of love, the hutch has been around as long as I have.  First belonging to my grandmother (it's at least 40yrs old), then lived for awhile in my aunts house, then moved to my uncles and currently our home and when Will & I find a place of our own it will move with us.  In other words she stays in the family.

Here she is in the beginning:

from top to bottom, as you can see she needed quite a cleaning.  The wood is very soft and was easily nicked.  For the most part she has been rather hidden, in our living room no less.  With the new kitchen we decided she needed more of a leading role & less of a walk on role.  So from the living room she was moved into the kitchen.

Here is the dilemma with the knobs.  The one on the right I bought for a desk I will be redoing later, we just wanted to see which would look better.  The off white knob with black vines or a big chunky glass knob.  Tho the picture is not great I think we made the right decision.  What do you guys think?

Here she is all finish:

She is still a work in progress as far as accessories go.  As you can see she got a nice white coat with blue accents.  I used Kilz primer, Antique White by Color Place and Clear Blue Sky by Glidden (though to be honest we had the color mixed in the cheaper Color Place paint.  If you get the right person working in the paint department they will mix it for you.  If not then you are stock with buying the $26 paint.  We are on a budge & I repeat we are renting. Some will warn that you will not get the right color if you use a different paint, that is to be expected so we did not worry too much as long as it was a close match.) However if you are going to go cheaper paint I would suggest getting Kilz stain blocking primer.  We had originally bought just a cheapy primer for $11 and we had a lot of bleed through on our walls.  I decided to bite the bullet & buy Kilz, WOW!! what a difference.  We only needed one coat of primer as opposed to 2 or 3.  So with that being said I also used the Kilz on the hutch since it was so old and has been around a lot of smoke.  The knobs I got from Hobby Lobby for $1.99 (50% off).  We decided to leave the drawers original hard ware though it is still a debate.  I spray painted them with Krylon Ocean Breeze, then distressed them.  However my OCD is kicking and I can clearly tell that the blue on the back of the hutch and the blue on the handles are two different colors.  Mom says she doesn't notice it and Will says it's "not that noticeable" but I notice.  We bought some nice drawer pulls for our cabinets that I've debated on going back & getting for the hutch, but that's for another post.

The plates displayed our various platters that we've either recently bought or have had.  The center platter is from my grandmothers china that we inherited with the hutch.  I wanted to give it center stage so to speak.  The platter on the left was also one of my grandmothers.  The rose dish I found for .50 cents at a thrift store & the plate was a project I've posted about.  The bell we've had forever, I sprayed it with Krylon Ocean Breeze & gave it a little distressing, as for the apocrathy jar I found at Goodwill for $1.50, I couldn't pass it up.  Will made me put back a clear one last week that was only $2.99.  I'm sure with time what is displayed will change, plus the very top of the hutch will be decorated as well.  I hate leaving all that empty space...empty.

Oh and before I close up I forgot to mention that I mixed some of the Clear Blue Sky with a bit of water washed the center of the lip with it, just to show the details better.  I'm still not sure about it, what do you guys think?  She also got a very light distressing, I didn't want to over do it since it is a family piece. Now that she is finished I'm am completely in love with her all over again.

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