I have wanted a hutch since we got married 10 years ago, but refused to pay the average price of $1200. My goal price for finding a used one was $200 so when this one popped up on Craig’s List for $150, I was thrilled!

I knew I would need to paint it and change out the hardware, but I loved the size and style of it so much, I was willing to take on my first furniture re-do!

After some cleaning, this is what I started with.

I did a lot of research and took advice from crafty friends, and decided to skip the stripping and sanding of the hutch and just purchase some Annie Sloan paint.  Online craft sites (and my friends) assured me there was hard labor involved using this paint.  I just had to test it out for myself!

The closest place to my home to get this paint is .  I headed on over and the ladies were so helpful showing me the different colors, examples, styles they had in the store. I decided on the white paint and also picked up some wax. The total was around $60…the most I’ve ever paid for paint. But they assured me it was worth it and would be a relatively painless process.  They also made sure to tell me to call with any questions.  A+ service for sure!

I went home and got to work on painting the hutch.  My husband had already taken off the top doors for me. We were unable to take off the bottom doors since the hardware was stripped and old. Dealing with the hardware was actually the hardest part of the whole process!

After my first coat of paint I was thinking, “This DOES not look like the pictures on Pinterest!”.

But I kept the faith and kept painting.  When I was done with the second coat of paint, I started feeling a little more confident.I had read online to water down the paint a bit to make it last longer and I think if I had not done that, the piece would have only taken 2 coats. However, since I did add the water, I had to do 3 coats.  After the 3rd coat, I used some normal latex paint on the inside.  Why you ask?  I wanted to make the inside “pop” and also match my dining room wall. I was a little worried about using the latex on the Annie Sloan paint, but there were no issues at all!  I was super pleased with the end result.

Then came the waxing.  I was very nervous about this process. There were all kinds of techniques I found online and I decided to just grab an old t-shirt, and get to work.  It went on easily and was super easy!  My one piece of advice would be to wear gloves. I had a difficult time washing the excess wax off my fingers. I am still shocked at how easy the whole project ended up being!  Finally we added the doors back on and new hardware. I couldn’t be more happy with the final product!  Redoing this hutch took me a week but that’s because I only had small amounts of time to work on it each day. If I had one entire day of no interruptions, I could have easily have finished it in one day.  The Annie Sloan paint dries incredibly fast so you don’t have to wait very long to apply second coats.

All in all, I spent about $100 on paint and hardware making the total cost of my new hutch only $250!  Now my only problem is figuring out what I will paint next!