Pearls in the Attic

Actually, there are no pearls in this post, but rather my grandmother’s hutch and it wasn't in the attic, but I really liked the sound of the title. Regardless, most of us have a piece of family furniture that can use a facelift or maybe you bought something at a flea market that looked like it had "possibilities". This was my grandmother’s dinning room hutch / breakfront / pearl and served as a catch-all for linen napkins, silverware and the obligatory plastic grapes prominently displayed in a sterling silver bowl. Take a look at the original piece:

 


Not a great photo but you get an idea of what the original hutch looked like.
The thing hanging from the red cord, btw, is a wooden cow bell I brought back from Thailand. Not sure what happened to the cow.



As you can see, the hutch was made of oak and stained a reddish-pecan color. It looked quite smart alongside her enormous dining table whose legs were the size of tree trunks. Somehow I ended up with it but was a bit dubious about the color or what to do with it. Not wanting to dispose of a family heirloom, however, I decided to re-purpose it. This, of course, involved lots of stripeze.

Unfortunately, I do not have step-by-step photos of the process but I can describe how I accomplished the end result and at least show you the finished product. Here is a list of materials you will need:

To Strip and Prep the Hutch:

• Varnish stripper. Make sure you get the right kind as there are all sorts, depending on the material you are stripping
• Safety glasses
• An inexpensive paint brush that can be thrown away after use
• 2 large glass jars, one to hold the stripping material and one for the varnish that you will scrape off of the wood surfaces. Do not use plastic because the stripper will eat the bottom of the container and strip anything below it you did not want stripped.
• Acetone; after stripping the wood it’s a good idea to remove the residue to stop the process
• Several old, clean rags to mop up any drips of stripper; be careful, this stuff is like battery acid. It will eat through anything so make sure you only put it where you really want it to be.
• A pair of thick work gloves (not rubber). Stripper will peel the skin right off your hands just like a banana.
• Paint scraper; plastic works best because it won't gouge the wood but make sure it's heavy-duty
• Hand-sander or, if you don’t own one of these handy items, a sanding block.
• Medium-, fine- and extra-fine grade sandpaper sheets

To Refinish the Hutch:

• Watered-down white latex or chalk paint
• Medium-quality paint brush
• Rags to wipe off excess paint
• Hand-made or store-bought stencil for drawer fronts and doors. I made mine from a pattern I found on the Interline but you can buy them at any hobby shop or hardware store like Home Depot or Lowe’s. Martha S. makes fancy ones, too.
• Dust mask

Now, follow these easy step-by-step instructions and you will be amazed at what happens with enough wood stripper and elbow grease:

• Set up your work space outside and make sure the area is well-ventilated. The garage is fine as long as you have a cross breeze. My arts and crafts teacher at camp once keeled over from inhaling casting resin fumes during a “Make Your Own Paperweight” demonstration and had to be revived with smelling salts. I wonder why we didn't keel over, too. Hmmm.

• With your heavy work gloves protecting your precious skin and your protective glasses covering your peepers, carefully spread the wood stripper with the paint brush, working top to bottom to achieve a uniform effect. If you have any sawdust handy, sprinkle it all over the stripper. It will make it easier and cleaner to scrap off. After the stripper has soaked in and the varnish starts to get very gooey, carefully scrap the old varnish away from the wood using the paint scrapper. Put this material into the glass jar so it won’t end up on the bottom of your shoe. 

• Continue this process until all of the varnish has been removed. Then take a clean cloth and soak it in acetone. Wipe all of the surfaces to remove any remaining stripper. Note: you can buy a product that will do this same thing but acetone works just as well and is cheaper.

• Once you have removed all of the old varnish from your hutch and the acetone has evaporated it’s time to get out your hand sander or sanding block and get to work on the stain. The stripper will remove the varnish but not the old stain, so unless you just want to re-varnish the hutch, you will need to do some sanding. Put on your dust mask.

• Starting with medium-grade sandpaper, sand all the surfaces of the hutch to remove as much of the old stain as possible. This is where a hand sander is really useful as it can get right down into the grain. With enough elbow grease, though, you can achieve similar results.

• Once you have sanded the hutch with the medium-grade sandpaper switch to the fine grade and repeat the process. Finally, switch to the ultra-fine grade to achieve a smooth surface. You want to open up the pores of the wood grain so the paint wash can soak in. Think of this step as a facial for you hutch.

• Now take your white latex paint wash and start applying it with the paint brush. Use a clean cloth to remove any excess paint, unless you want it to be a bit splotchy. This is where you can get jiggy with it and start freely expressing your inner messy child. You can see from the photo of the top of my hutch that I flung some thicker paint around to give it a sort-of feathery look. Be sure there is nothing nearby that would not also look good with paint flung over it.

  

  This is the top of the refinished hutch. It has a nice patina and the paint flings
  just give it a sort of artsy effect.

• After the paint has dried (you should really leave it overnight with a fan blowing over the surface) get out your stencil and start getting really creative. I removed the drawers and hutch doors so I could work on them on a flat surface. I used acrylic paint and a small paint brush.

  

  I found some old tin pulls in a junk shop to replace the original wooden ones.
  I think they match the bohemian look of the “new” hutch and add a bit of interest.
  If you use the original pulls you can carefully dip them into the stripper
  and then use steel wool to remove the old varnish.

• So now you have your stripped, painted and stenciled hutch and all you have to do is apply a coating of furniture wax. This will give it a nice patina without it looking shiny and plastic-y. It will also help restore some of the moisture to the hutch that has been removed by the stripper and acetone. I don’t ever use furniture polish on pieces like these as it can stain it and leave it with a greasy surface.

  

  As you can see, the bottom drawer isn't quite finished yet. There is a bit more work
  to be done on the drawer itself, which I am assured will take place soon...

There you have it. I hope these rather involved instructions make sense and you can re-purpose or re-imagine something that has otherwise been sitting in your attic while you were figuring out what to do with it. Of course, you can always just slap a coat of paint on it and call it a day but I hope you will try this technique instead. Once in a while we all need to think outside the hutch.

Chairs,

Gigi