Chalk it up to Poor Preparation: A DIY Hutch Makeover

I’ll begin the way that I typically start these, with an excuse for the long interval since my last writing. This time it’s that I spent the better part of August working on several essays for another publication, specifically The Medium Writers Challenge. The remit was to write a personal essay in response to one or more of the prompts, Reentry, Death, Work, and Space. In a classic case of biting off more than I could chew, I had a grand vision to write an essay for each of the four prompts that could function as standalone pieces while all tying together into a larger story. Unfortunately, my execution fell somewhere short of the envisioned masterpiece due to lack of time, diligence, and, ultimately, talent.

Shortcomings aside, my essays are published, the competition has closed, and I am now free to once again direct my metaphoric pen and paper to the blog. With all the scattered house projects that have been simultaneously slugging along in the background, I thought it a good time to share an update on one such project that, after months in the making, is finally going to be coming to a close in the near future.

As this particular project happens to be a total overhaul of the master bedroom, the wrap date cannot come soon enough. For months now we’ve been living in the eventual office alongside unpacked boxes of books while the master was getting a new drywall ceiling, fresh paint on the walls, and upgraded blinds. As the room as a whole is not yet finished, I won’t give a full read out of all the updates here. Rather, I’ll tease you with a smaller project that I’ve been working on in tandem. Behold, the hutch.

This photo was taken a few years ago when I was living in Los Angeles, and the hutch was one of the first pieces I bought to furnish my one-bedroom apartment there. Purchased from Urban Outfitters at several hundred dollars short of a grand, it was relatively inexpensive as far as new, large pieces of furniture go, but not an insignificant investment for a recent grad school graduate just getting back into the workforce full-time.

I can proudly say that when it arrived in multiple pieces, I assembled the thing myself – not an easy task given its weight and my lack of handyman skills. At the time this photo was taken, however, I apparently had not yet gotten around to attaching the handles to the doors. As also evidenced here, this was my first and most successful attempt to-date to care for indoor plants. This was before my one cat became two and they independently developed a taste for house plant.

Before we moved into our house in Portland last fall, the hutch had always graced the living room of the various apartments I had lived in. But in the house, our master bedroom, with its single tiny closet, seemed the best home for it. Alas, after withstanding the jostling of several moves, the doors are uneven and no longer want to come to a full close. The bottom door has also since been lost. But the handles are at least now firmly attached.

If you look closely at the background in the following pictures, you can see glimpses of the transformation of the ceiling and walls of the room. In these the hutch is pictured in its original yellow-toned pine finish (never a favorite of mine). I had originally looked into purchasing a new piece that would better match the aesthetic of the reimagined space but couldn’t find a suitable one at a price that I wanted to pay. So it was to be another DIY endeavor – the transformation of my sallow hutch into a dark beauty worthy of its new chambers. Or at least something approaching that.

To fit the muted beige-y grey tones of the fresh walls and ceiling, I painted the hutch a soft black and left the natural color of the caning. For this dusky matte look I chose Annie Sloan chalk paint in Athenian black. Though I’m happy with how easily the paint brushed on and looked after it dried, I am less pleased with its durability. Perhaps that’s a result of poor preparation, as I did not sand nor prime prior to applying the paint, but one of the lauded benefits of chalk paint is that it supposedly doesn’t require any such tedious prep work. Yet, after two coats, the paint would pick up residue from my hands and begin to rub off with any attempts to remove said residue. Worse, the slightest abrasion, a finger nail or even the removal of tape, would leave a visible scratch in the paint.

Though we’ve kept the bedroom door shut these several months while the room hasn’t been in use, on the few occasions that the cats have managed to sneak in, they’ve clambered on the hutch, leaving dirty paw prints and long claw marks in their wake. And any time we needed to close the doors in order to move the hutch, paint would scrape off wherever one edge touched another. I ended up going back on three different occasions to touch up these areas before I was finally able to put on a protective topcoat.

After much wasted time and paint, I eventually got around to sealing the piece. Most resources that I read online recommended using wax to protect chalk painted furniture, but since it’s a less durable finish, I was worried that it wouldn’t stand up to the inevitable abuse from our cats. I opted instead for Rust-Oleum’s Chalked Matte Clear and, being lazy, got the spray-on, not paint-on variety.

Despite the manufacturer’s assurances that it would dry matte, I was concerned that the topcoat would add some amount of sheen to my lovely chalky finish. Sure enough, the paint has gone from a flat soot to somewhere along the spectrum of satin to high-gloss noir. It was also difficult to get an even application with the spray can, which is apparent in the following photos (but amplified thanks to the lighting). How it holds up to little feline feet remains to be tested, as the kitties haven’t been allowed into the room since.

And let’s not forget the deathly fumes. While the instructions on the can direct you to use either outdoors or inside in a well ventilated space, after my experience burning through two cans indoors with all the windows open, I would strongly advise that this product only be used outside. The smell – like every surface of the house had been drenched in commercial grade acetone nail polish remover – gave me an instant headache before quickly permeating throughout the entire house.

It was so pungent that my boyfriend insisted we leave the premises. So we locked the cats in the basement – the farthest away from the fumes we could get them – put the dog in the car, and the three of us waited it out for a couple hours at a nearby brewery. As far as excuses go to drink beer at a bar before noon, I’d say that’s one of our better ones.

As I intend to use the hutch as a secondary closet, I purchased baskets to fit in the bottom shelf that will house folded or rolled articles of clothing. Because we will soon be moving into the master, I didn’t want to waste time finding and ordering just the right baskets online and instead made do with what was currently available at my local Fred Meyer. A side note for anyone unfamiliar with this retailer – it’s like the Pacific Northwest’s answer to Walmart (although we have those here too).

All in all the baskets aren’t bad, but I’m not loving the grey against the black and natural cane so will likely end up replacing them or perhaps simply spray painting them black as well. With no chalk paint or toxic topcoats in the mix, it should be a relatively straightforward exercise. But that’s how most of these DIY projects start – with foolish optimism and flawed judgments about the required investment of time, money, and effort. A classic case of famous last words. In the meantime, stay tuned for the full reveal of the refinished master bedroom in the upcoming weeks.