Hutch makeover -- because the kitchen isn't done yet!

Maggie (but we are really looking at the hutch in the back)

I told you that we haven't been able to completely finish any rooms in our house makeover, but we have been working on small bits and pieces. The hutch in the background is one thing that we finished that I just love. I couldn't find any other before pictures of it because it wasn't initially a huge project, but once we got the kitchen cabinets in, I really wanted to get this to match everything else.

We got all new custom kitchen cabinets, but the built-ins in the dining room were KraftMaid custom cabinets with drawer pullouts that were really nice. The only problem is that they were in that darn medium oak.

My daughter doing some work on the back wall.

I've painted cabinets before and they turned out OK, but I wanted to do some research to find a process that worked really well. I was searching and found some valuable information from This Old House. First there was a YouTube video, then I find an article from This Old House that told of two products that were crucial in painting cabinets: Crown QT Latex Agent Hard Coat by Crown and XIM Advanced Technology UMA Bonder and Primer/Sealer. Of course, I can now no longer find the original This Old House article, but at least I remembered what to do with the products.

After cleaning the wood of the hutch and sanding it down, we used two coats of the primer because it seemed rather thin. This is a bonder and primer/sealer, so the article said that it would really help the paint adhere to the cabinet and result in less chipping. That was important to me because when we have painted in the past, we had some minor chipping and I really wanted the hutch to look as nice as the kitchen cabinets.

After the primer, we sanded with a 120 grit sandpaper and made it smooth. Then my husband used his amazing paint sprayer (I love that thing!). We mixed the Hard Coat in with the HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams semi-gloss paint that we got at Lowe's and sprayed it on the cabinet doors. We used a foam roller to paint the wood on the actual built-in part of the cabinet.

We then purchased our cabinet handles from Amazon. If you haven't purchased cabinet handles from there (or door knobs or really any hardware needed), it is so much cheaper than any place I have found and the quality has been tremendous. We got all of the doorknobs and hinges from my previous post at a fraction of the cost from Amazon -- and I love how nice it looks.

The bonder/primer/sealer and the hardcoat made such a difference. The cabinets feel like we purchased them that way and the finish looks great. I know there are other products that are similar, so I would highly recommend this process of using the bonder, then adding a hardcoat to your paint.

We got a counter top that matches the kitchen and I absolutely love the way the whole project looks. It matches the kitchen (which is blog post that is coming soon!) and really modernized the dining room.

The finished hutch in the dining room