A Pink Hutch

I have a dual kitchen; I run a small home bakery from the same kitchen I make my coffee in each morning and cook dinner in every night. Function overrides style in this part of my home and storage has been my biggest challenge. Everything needs to have its place and purpose so that I can run my business and life with ease. The eat-in kitchen we currently have is a good size, of course I don't think one's kitchen can be too big. I'm a resourceful gal and when we purchased this home in 2018 I made the upstairs third bedroom my office/cookie room (post on that later) and we converted the upstairs coat closet to our kitchen pantry. Packaging and bakeware had its home in my office, our "home pantry" was set up and all of our kitchen cabinetry was filled with cookware and appliances along with the typical kitchen gadgets and coffee mugs. 2020 brought a lot of struggle yet I was blessed enough to see an increase in my business. I was baking more than ever and during this time my husband began working remotely full-time which demanded the need for more organization and space. New cabinetry was an expense we did not want to take on but I couldn't find the right size shelving anywhere. Then I found this gem of a hybrid on Facebook Marketplace.

The top half was part of an old hutch and the bottom half a set of old cabinets and counter set between the two. For I measured the empty wall in my kitchen and for $90, this was all mine. It had all the space I needed to hold baking ingredients plus a little extra counter space and shelving for some extra items and cake stands I had. A little beat up sure but I had plans for it!

I'm not a DIY person, rather an admirer of those who are. I'm not sure I have the skillset or the patience but I'm always astonished at what some creative and talented people can do in and around their homes and spaces. So this was my best shot! Here's what I used:

I sanded the entire hutch piece by piece and used Rust-Oleum's Chalked Paint in 'Blush Pink'. This took 3 coats of paint on each piece since I wanted more of a finished look rather than something rustic or antiqued. I decided to remove the hutch doors to have more of an open shelving concept. As you can see from the photo, the bottom edges of the cabinets are a little rough but for a temporary piece, this was just fine and hardly noticeable. I added the glass cabinet knobs for a little touch of charm or gaud (maybe both) and thought it definitely created a little corner of warmth in our very neutral kitchen. Our cabinetry is brown and our walls are painted Behr's 'burnished clay'. Will is stay or go? Not quite sure yet but for now, it makes me smile whenever I pass by. Will I ever take on DIYing a piece like this again? Probably not!