The Gardner Hutch - Before & After

BeforeI found this hutch back in December. I found it at a second hand store and just could not believe that someone had donated it. I called Mike on a day that was super busy for him and told him that I had found my Christmas present. I just could not wait to have him paint it for me. Well it took us seven months to get it done. And it was well worth the wait. I am in love with it. I just could not have found something better for our home.

We made a few cosmetic changes that really enhanced the beauty.

After
We painted it white and added all new hardware. The original warm dark stain shows all of the beautiful characteristics in the distressing. We kept the original dark beadboard backing to compliment the hardware and give depth and a nice contrast to our dishes and best dinnerware. I love all the dimensions of this hutch. It has four bottom doors and two side drawers with a large middle drawer. Moving up above the main landing are two more doors and another large middle drawer as well as another landing to display precious old dinnerware and memorable hand me downs. Above this is still another landing for additional displaying options. This hutch is quite large and provides for tons of storage.

You can see one of the cosmetic changes we made here. The doors all had beadboard backing plus an additional curvy wood feature on top of the backing. We did not think the additional detail was needed and just wanted the beadboard so we pulled those off. I think it provides a nice clean fresh look.
We used oil rubbed bronze cup pulls on the two outer drawers and placed vertical pulls on all the doors. We used five knobs on each of the middle large drawers. This hardware really compliments the distressing and adds so much visual character. You can see back at the before picture that the top two landings had wooden rails which I thought were not necessary and a bit distracting. We pulled those off which is much more visually appealing as well.
I love the warmth of the dark wood peaking through the clean white. I love the contrast of the dark beadboard against the white. We debated and debated on painting it and not painting it and I could not be more pleased with the results. And finally there it is. The Gardner Hutch which will live with us through the rest of our days. Coming up next is the reveal of our barnwood table which is nestled comfortably next to this hutch. You can catch a sneak peak of one of our chairs there in the corner. I never did pick out new fabric to cover the seats but have decided that what we currently have will work just fine for now. After all, we just recovered them last summer.

Happy Friday all. I know I am going to have a good one!

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