I was originally going to paint it when I saw it sitting at the curb in front of one of our old neighbor’s houses, but once I got it inside and realized it was really good quality solid wood, I decided I’d better keep it that way and refinish it. But then I didn’t. We do also already have a lot of really nice antique wood furniture that will never be painted, so we’ve got the whole “respect for wood furniture” thing covered around here. I promise you.
Then something else happened. Farrow and Ball got in contact with me and wanted to know if I’d like to give some of their paint a try. We decided a furniture makeover was the way to go and then it was pretty much like fate. The hutch’s time had finally come.
So here it is before.
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Or during, rather. I couldn’t wait to test out the colors as soon as they arrived.
You’ve probably seen this same piece lurking around in the background in other photos of our living room too, like this:
It was nice, but the fact that it was in such bad shape made the whole room feel a little sad.
So it was Farrow and Ball to the rescue! I’ve always wanted to try their paints because I’ve heard great things and I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed. One of the great things is that Farrow and Ball paints have zero VOC, so they’re great for using while you’re expecting.
I chose two of their new colors to try out, called Wevet (the white) and Mole’s Breath (the gray).
Sorry for the grainy picture here. I took this one late on Saturday night after I finished it all up and got all excited about it.
Here it is now!
Painting over stained furniture, especially reddish toned pieces can always be a little challenging when you’re going for white, so I used two coats of primer on all the white parts first, so I wouldn’t waste my precious paint, then I did two more coats of the Farrow and Ball Wevet. For the back where I used the Mole’s Breath, I just did two straight coats, no primer, and it covered like a dream. I got it mostly done on Friday night while watching TV and eating snacks in between coats and then got the hardware back on it on Saturday. It was so easy and so satisfying! Why do I always wait so long to get these things done?
There are a few little tests I do to see how much I like a project once I finish it, and you might do them too without even noticing it.
The first thing I do, is I walk out of the room and then come back in to see my reaction. Well, I’ve been doing this over and over again for the last week, of course. I just keep loving it more and more! Especially that Wevet color. It’s such a calm white, but it’s still clean and crisp looking. Know what I mean?
My other favorite test is the decorating test. If something suddenly becomes really easy to decorate with, on, or around, then you just know you’ve done the right thing.
I’ve always had trouble with trying to add stuff to this hutch to make it look decent and never feeling really satisfied at all.
Now though, I’ve added back pretty much the same stuff, along with some Christmas sparklies, and suddenly everything just works!
Boom! Life in this corner of the living room feels just a little bit easier, just like that.
…And I’m convinced I need to paint the rest of the room now to go with my little hutch of happiness here.
I see some nap-time painting sessions coming up in my future when the baby gets here! 🙂
Thanks so much to Farrow and Ball for sending me this paint to try. Needless to say, I loved it!