Creating Kitchen Storage Space in a Decorative Way

Joanne Diamond
by Joanne Diamond
9 Materials
$100
8 Hours
Medium
You see, I really only have 2 large kitchen cupboards and both are corners. So in these two cabinets had to be my dinnerware, mixing bowls, and pots/pans and frying pans. It was definitely squishy and irrititating. I decided to display my dinnerware and thus have 'functional decor'. In the hutch itself, I put my canned goods (and will add other things as I get cleaning out my pantry). This freed up space in my cabinets and my pantry. Now I can have my bowls, etc in easy reach where my dinnerware was and the pots/pans and frying pans can go in the pantry where my canned goods were. I'm rather proud of myself for coming up with this idea! LOLTo make this hutch, I used the top portion of a china cabinet.





I first removed the doors and all hardware. I then thoroughly cleaned it with a vinegar/water solution. Then, I hand sanded it. I wiped the sanding dust off with the damp cloth from the vinegar/water solution.






Following the directions that came with the product, I mixed BB Frosch chalk powder into one cup of Benjamin Moore Aura Matte paint in the Benjamin Moore color Chelsea Gray. I painted the large areas with a regular soft paint brush and used a sponge brush in the small areas. I gave it two coats, leaving 2 hours in between coats.






While the painted hutch was curing, I began working on the wood countertop. I stripped it with Citri-Strip. After cleaning off the stripper very carefully, making sure there was no trace left, I sanded. I used my rotary sander first, then my mouse sander, then sanded by hand. It sounds like a quite a process but it really was quite easy.I thought I had completely stripped the top down but when I began applying the gel stain, in became immediately obvious that I had not.  I decided to roll with it.  With gel stain, you have to wait at least 12 hours between coats and 24 hours is much better.  It took 3 coats to get it where I wanted it to be so that means it was a 3 day process! I applied the gel stain with a sponge brush fairly thickly like painting and then I used a dry brush and vigorously/gently (I know that sounds dumb but thats exactly what I did) brushed it following the grain pattern.After the third and final coat, it then had to set for 72 hours to cure before I could clear coat it.  You guessed it, I used Varathane NanoDefense Matte and used just 2 coats.






Using knotty pine to build these two shelves, I used 4 of the 1x3x4 and 2 of the 1x5x4.  Using a clean rag, I stained each individual board with one coat of Old Masters Spanish Oak gel stain then left them out to dry for a day before building the shelves.I drilled pilot holes before screwing them together using regular drywall black screws.  There was only one stud in the wall that I could screw to so I used those heavy duty plastic anchors to screw the other screws into the wall.  These two shelves cost me under $20 in boards to make.






And here is the finished product!
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Joanne Diamond
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  • Diva Diva on Sep 23, 2018

    I love it 😍you did a gr8 job👍i have an old tv stand and want to do something with it any ideas?

  • Jenni Jenni on Sep 23, 2018

    Were the cupboard doors from the hutch?. Very beautiful work. Love that it is functional too!

  • Ginny Ginny on Oct 19, 2018

    Lovely job. Can you show inside? We would like to see the total finished product?

    And, are the doors from the same cabinets? Thanks

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  • Poppy Poppy on Dec 29, 2019

    I am so excited to see the simple shelves for displaying plates. I have been looking for an easy way to display my large ceramic platters. I am going to try this for sure. Thank you for sharing.

  • Beth Beth on Sep 09, 2020

    Those are MY dishes-LOL.

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