Thanks for waiting!!  As my days are committed to my kids and everything that comes with them…the driving, cooking, cleaning,  driving, piano practice, driving, homework, more cleaning and more cleaning, and after bedtime is a quick workout, I don’t get around to doing my “fun stuff” till now, 10:00 pm.  So as long as you are patient with me, you will see I do get things done – slowly!  But I’m sure most of us are in the same boat, one way or another, and will forgive me!?

Continuing from last post, the Kitchen Hutch Tutorial, after the light sanding and wiping the hutch clean, I continued with 2 coats of white paint.  This again was paint we had here from past renovations and furniture painting.  I’m not even sure of the color name, but it is latex paint from the Rona Collection, with a silk finish.  One thing I have to say about this, is, invest in good paint brushes.  We have loads of brushes around here, but I have found out things don’t show up on walls the way they do on a loved piece of furniture… and brush strokes annoy me!  So if they annoy you too, put out the $$ for this step.

After letting the 2 coats of paint cure for 24 hours I got to distress!  Although this made me nervous at first, soon enough I was having a blast!  I started on the back as the guinea pig, and by the time I was on the front I had it figured out how much pressure I wanted to give, what angle to hold the sand paper at, and so on.  Many people use their electric sander for this, but I wasn’t ready to be that daring.  Plus, I didn’t want too much distressing, just enough to “rustic” it up a bit.  If you are wiser than me, however, you would wear gloves for this… I am waaayyyy too impatient to go searching for gloves when I do this, but there were times my fingers were burning!

distressing

Distressing

Just beware, this will make a big mess on your floor:

"Big Mess"

It completely grossed my husband out when I told him this is often what my floor looked like after I finished some client’s pedicures!  Remember to moisturize ladies!

The next evening I touched up my distressing job with the “sponge” sander (I have no idea what this thing is called)

"Sponge Sander"

and a wet rag

to smooth out any chipped edges.  I like the effect this gave also, it deepened the depth of it just enough to make it all a little more noticeable.

The whole time I was distressing the furniture though, I could hear my dad’s voice (who paints houses for a living) “why would you buy a perfectly good piece of furniture, just to paint it, then sand it off again?!”  Which did make me wonder, why is it attractive to have a piece of furniture that was meant to be distressed, but it’s not so attractive when it happens by accident on my countertops, wall paint, and window frames??

Distressed Window Frame

Back to the topic, next step was glazing.  This step made me extremely nervous.  Like I mentioned, I wanted this furniture to look somewhat rustic, but not “antique”, therefore, I had to be careful how much glaze to use, how dark to make it, and how much coverage to give.  After some research, I decided to use a craft paint, in “Burnt Umber” mixed with water, as it is very forgiving.  I played around with the measurements and the effects it gave, until I came up with this:

Glaze

Basically looking like melted chocolate pudding.  I wiped it on with a rag, and quickly wiped it off with a damp rag.  Some places I rubbed it in harder, some places I left it on longer, etc.  I worked it mainly in the areas I had distressed, plus I worked it into the grooves of the back, to accentuate them more.  Plus, on the two display shelves, I wiped on a very thin coat over the whole shelf, then rubbed off as hard as I could because I panicked!  But I like the way it turned out!    Because the lighting in the kitchen isn’t exactly supreme at 10:00 at night, I had to wait till morning to really discover how it turned out, and I have to admit, there are a few spots I’m not proud of, (I might have forgotten to wipe off the glaze?!) but those are in the back and I can completely ignore them!

Glazed

Glazed

After letting this all cure for 24 hours, I followed with 3 coats of varnish.  For this I used Varathane Diamond Wood Finish, Interior Semi Gloss varnish.  This was the most boring step!  You can’t really see it go on, and for me, that’s boring!  After 3 coats I let it sit for a day, then gave a light sanding and wipe down… and took pictures… but as things go in our house, our camera is again not communicating with our computer, and it won’t upload the “after” pictures!  Arrgh.  My computer geek husband plans to pick up a special computer piece hopefully on Thursday, so hopefully on Friday I will have pictures to show you!

So, instead, I will show you that I do have my second bird finished for my bird mobile!

2nd bird finished!

Thanks for reading!

(To read part 1 of this tutorial, find it here.

To see the final outcome of the hutch and desk makeover, find it here.)