This piece of furniture began in my head. After scouring antique stores and decorating books and searching extensively on craigslist and through used furniture stores, I finally found my little piece of heaven. This one is staying home, but I am putting a similar finish on another piece at the moment since I love the way this one turned out and will be putting it in my new booth at A & J's Antiques this weekend. I found the hutch at a used furniture store for $45.00. I had it sitting in the garage for a couple of months before I found the small buffet it sits on perfectly. I found the little solid maple two drawer buffet for $125 on craigslist. The lady wouldn't budge on the price but I knew the measurements were right for my needs so I took it! Here is the story...
The hutch had a wobbly masonite back with woodgrain sticky paper on it. The maple buffet had this little lip around it that I knew would have to be removed.
We took the back off of the hutch and added beaded board paneling from Home Depot that we custom cut. We didn't put it underneath the cabinet we used regular masonite for that.
This is how the cabinet fit on the buffet after we took that wooden "lip" that ran around the edges off. It was really easy for my husband to do. He found the screw holes and worked the screws loose then hammered it off where it was glued. I sanded it down smooth. You can still see the light unstained wood where the lip was coming out in front of the hutch. No worries. I was going to paint it anyway.
Painted the beaded board paneling raw umber and the cabinet Tuscan Red by Americana paint. The right side of the cabinet shows my first sanding with 3X to add distress.
I custom mixed a dark grey paint and then dry brushed it on. This piece has 4 "layers" of paint on it and I didn't photograph each one but here is how I did it. Base in Tuscan Red, dry brushed custom mixed dark grey, then black in a hatching pattern on top of grey. Last coat before the polycrylic was a thick wash of raw umber "stain." I just continued adding and covering up paint until I achieved the patina that I was looking for.
It looks like it ended up a sort of burgandy in this photo, but it didn't. I think it may be because I took the photo without natural light in the evening. I'll try to remember to re-post a daylight photo. It is really a gorgeous red with grey and black touches and then a light distress.
This is a closer look at the distress and paint technique. You can see the black "hatching" pattern. When you do this, you run the paint at the corners in both corner directions up and down and across. That way you get a heavier set on the paint and it ends up looking more authentic.
Another look at the paint technique. It's messy and scattered and that is how I wanted it. Now I can show the before and after and then have fun finding some awesome thrift store goodies to fill it with!!
Before
After
If I were to sell this in my booth, the price tag would easily be $795.00 Remember that I did pay more for the buffet than I wanted but the hutch is fairly hard to find and the fact that they fit perfectly as one piece is pretty cool. Total spent with paint...$180...XOXO...the thrift addict.
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