Before and After Built In Hutch Makeover

Last week, I showed you how I painted a laminate counter top and I promised to show you how I updated the built-in hutch that surrounded it. When we bought our house, I absolutely loved that it had this built-in because it allowed me to get my good dishes out of storage and actually use them. Our old house had no where for good dishes, so I had them in storage.

But, I wasn’t in love with the 70’s yellowed oak, or the giant brushed brassy knobs. I didn’t want to paint the wood because I liked the grain, so for a while, I was stuck with this.

And then I had some inspiration. I figured if I could make some wood look pickled by whitewashing it with white paint, why not try to darken the wood with darker paint? So I got out some of my craft paints. Yes, that’s what I used, bottles of acrylic craft paint. Using a disposable plastic tray, I put blobs of different colors in the tray: black, burgundy, chocolate brown. Then I added some water to dilute the paint and make it more like a wash. I dipped a brush into the color and started painting it onto the surface. I made sure that I kept it a little bit streaky so that I didn’t lose the look of wood grain. The color was sort of a mahogany (reddish brown). 

In other words, I was trying to tint the wood, but not to fully cover the wood with paint.

This is how it looked right after I painted it. I hadn’t found new handles yet, so it still has the ugly brassy ones.