The Cheapskate Crafter: China hutch to buffet

I had to hardest time trying to decide what to do with this, super ugly china hutch!

It all started when I got these free table, chairs and hutch from good ol Craigslist in November

(the top hutch is upside down) This was after i took off some of the ugly hardware.

and this lovely matching table!

At first I was going to refinish it to a dark stain

as you can see from the one drawer, this would have worked nicely. Except the sides were made out of pressed board with like a paper fake wood finish... staining was a no go! Not to mention the top of the buffet is counter top laminate. So then I decided to paint it white and distress it and sell it.

Then some time went by and I still havent done anything to it. Then..

I got these great free chairs off of, yep Craigslist! Which gave me an idea!

So I decided to scratch the top hutch and just use the buffet, I headed over to walmart to pick up

some laminate couter top paint for the top, and im in love with the two tone look of furniture, so I decided to go with antique beige for the bottom.

But the most important thing for this project was the primer

You CAN paint paper fake cheap furniture!! its all in the primer. this stuff is great because it sticks to anything and leaves a nice service for paint to stick! Plus you dont have to sand!!!!!!!!

Anyways since the sides of the buffet were that cheap crap i used this over the whole thing! with no sanding!

I did 2 coats of primer, and 2 coats of antique beige. Use a high density foam roller, the kind for cabinet painting, and a foam brush for the tight areas. P.s. I hated painting these doors!! PIA!!

I sanded the nicks out of the top edge since that part was real wood. I also used wood filler to fill in any real bad scratches and holes since I used new hardware... well kinda. I never throw away drawer pulls, so I went to my drawer full of pulls and picked out 2 I loved for this look, spray painted them flat black, along with the orginal knobs AND hinges. Dont be scared to spray paint hinges, they will still work and move fine.

I preped the top as the instructions indicated, and used my foam roller to apply the counter top paint, I did 2 coats. This stuff SMELLS!! so make sure its nice enough to have PLENTY of ventilation! (i dont know how anyone can stand to actually paint their counter tops inside!) It takes 3 days to cure, I gave it 5 or 6 before bringing it in because it still smelled a little.

I drilled the new holes for the pulls. and....

TA DAH!!! I LOVE IT SOOOO MUCH!!

(I had a hard time hanging the doors back on by my self so the right door doesnt have the hinges on it yet, waiting for hubbs help or someone older than a 7 year old for help lol)

SO, I had a completly blank slate when it came to my dinning room, I picked a starting point in my design, I chose to decorate around my FREE dinning chairs that are black and ivory.