My First Real DIY Project

I would like to preface this post by reiterating that I am NOT, not in the slightest, artistically talented. And my creative side tends to be a bit linear and inside the box. Good, so now that I've let you know this, I just finished my first major DIY project! I can't believe the sense of accomplishment I feel, you'd think I'd just painted the Mona Lisa.

The largest room in our house is Spencer's "playroom" I use quotations because it's not even close to resembling a playroom yet, but since that's what it's eventually going to be, I call it the playroom. Essentially, it's a room filled with my Mema's old (with a few exceptions)- furniture that my mom doesn't want, but also doesn't want to sell or give it away. None of it is good furniture, so I didn't feel bad about re-purposing this china cabinet/hutch.

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Seriously, does this look like playroom to you? Not to me, so I decided to redo and re-purpose it. I really didn't like the hutch before, okay, I hated it; it was a china cabinet with no china and it was brown. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This piece of furniture was so poorly made, that it was virtually indestructible. I know that sounds weird, but it's true.
For example, in the top part, the center panel doesn't open and there's a piece of glass inside of a makeshift frame that sits out about a 1/2 inch from the base. Well, that glass was glued in, caulked in, and nailed in. There was also an additional frame behind it, on the side you couldn't see, that must have had over 100 tiny nails keeping it permanently attached, forever and ever.

After an hour of trying to get that center panel out, I gave up. I took off the doors on the top and the drawers in the middle, sand papered, and primed the hutch. It took two coats of primer because the wood was so dark and not the best quality, so I wanted to be on the safe side.

Did I mention that the shelves were glued on and the back panel was staple gunned in all the way around it? Because that's what it was! I tried for awhile to get it off, but then I gave up. Oh, and the hardware on the bottom cabinets were screwed AND glued in. When I started trying to get the glue off, some of the wood began to disintegrate, so I just decided I would paint them too. It's not something I would have typically done, but my options were limited since I couldn't remove them. Please take note that the glass pane is still in place!

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No more glass! I didn't take any pictures of the stage in between because I was so In The Zone. But I managed to pry the back panel out, pull over 50 staples from it (there were still a lot I left in there poking through, but I couldn't take any more staple pricks on my fingers), re-sand, paint, and nail back into place. I don't have a staple gun, hence the nails.

Getting that pane of glass out in one piece almost killed me. At one point I thought about trying to break it with my hammer, haha, luckily, the rational part of my brain took over before any shattering occurred. I finally managed to remove all the caulk and glue, but it was taking down the back panel that really made it possible. With that out of the way, I was able to get at some of the shoddy, behind the scenes, framing. Once I had one side banged out, it gave me some room to turn it enough that I was able to shimmy out the glass. Success!

I painted the drawers and backing the same coral shade that the accent wall is painted in the room, so it would all tie in together (remember the linear thing?). And I figured I had to paint the handles, because it would look weird to have some that were painted and others that were untouched brassy metal.

I think it looks a lot more kid friendly now! I'm going to use the bottom shelf to put some of her books on and the top shelves (the ones she can't reach) with some of her keepsakes and mementos. The cabinets will hold toys, crafts, coloring books, DVD's, etc.

The final product. I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Even though it's not perfect by any means, it's so much better than it was before. And that was really my goal when I started this project- to not make the After picture worse than the Before picture.

• I used an ACE paint for the green - Royal Touch Satin Wall and Trim in Parrot's Feather. Cost: $9.99
• For the coral, I used the end of the gallon of paint from the accent wall - Behr in Cool Lava Cost: Free (well for this project at least!)
• The primer was ACE's 1-2-3 Primer Cost: $6.99
• I already had most of the supplies I needed, but I bought some extra roller heads and two brushes. You can never have too many brushes. Cost: $6.50

Total Cost: $23.48

Total Time Spentt: Approximately 6 hours of actual labor, not counting drying times.

So there you have it, my first DIY project complete. I definitely learned a lot, so hopefully my next undertaking will go a little more smoothly!