As far as I know, this hutch is at least 75 years old. My mom remembers it being at my Grandparents house in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood and knows it was there when they moved in around 1934.
In my lifetime, it was a permanent fixture at my Gramma's summer house north of Chicago.
For as long as I can remember it was always in the same spot... on the "back porch" across from the washer and dryer. It was always filled with junk. My grandma was a true pack rat, she never threw anything away. I remember scavenging through it, past the old mixers she stored in it, to poke through the rusty coffee cans full of miscellaneous doohickeys and thingamabobs. For some reason, I would always get into trouble for exploring the filthy little mint green cabinet. I always liked it. I always wanted to clean it up.
When my Gramma passed away in 2003, I saved it from the house. I put alot of work into cleaning it up. Lots of time and money was spent on supplies. In the end I was completely satisfied with how it turned out. Here are my "BEFORE" pictures. I am so happy I was smart enough to actually snap a few. (You'll see in the future... that's rare for me.)
Dirty, dirty paint...
I tried to use a chemical paint stripper... It was working, but it was really sloppy and took forever.
I ended up buying a heat gun and rocked a gas mask and work gloves. Years and layers of lead paint bubbled up and I was able to scrap it off... and almost see wood. (Seriously... it may not look like progress, but it really was. There had to be at least 10 layers of thick paint on this piece.)
"DURING"...
I pryed the random piece of wood off the side. I'm not sure what that was doing there. There was a pinkish paint under it, so that was a pretty good clue that it was added at some point. So I just left it off.
The more I worked on this, the more I realized that this piece was not complete. I'm pretty sure it was just the top half to a much larger piece. 
After scrapping as much paint off as I could, I sanded off whatever was left with a rotary sander, oiled up the wood to look healthy, changed the hinges, changed the knob, painted the interior, panted the insets on the doors.
"AFTER"...
This is what I ended up with...
Regardless of what it is... I love it. And it holds my DVDs perfectly.
Posts
