Mid Century Hutch | Thrift Store Makeover

This mid-century hutch was a great deal for only fifteen dollars! The reason it was so cheap? The glass in one of the doors was broken.

Thrift Store Mid-Century Hutch

Other than that, it was in pretty good shape, except on the side edges of the bottom. This is pressed wood under veneer, so refinishing it wasn’t an option.

Can you see the bottom edge here? And the broken pane of glass?

Preparing to Paint MCM Hutch

A putty knife and needle-nosed pliers helped remove the glass in the mid-century modern hutch.

This is how the glass was held in place in the cabinet. I took a picture of the hinges to know how to reattach them when the time was right. Tip: take photos that will enable you to reassemble your project.

Step 1 Clean and Degrease

When you buy thrift store furniture, you never know what it’s been through or where it has been stored. TSP is an excellent cleaner/degreaser to remove grease, grime, and nicotine. Look how dirty the water is in the bucket.

Excellent All Purpose Paint For Thrift Store Projects

My new best friend, the Homeright Finish Max Super, is becoming well-loved and broken in. I mixed up some DIY chalky paint primer using some blue oops paint and plaster of paris.

Leaving the inside of the bottom cabinet original wasn’t a difficult decision for me. When a cabinet is meant for storage, paint can get scratched up. For this reason,  I prefer not to paint the inside of storage pieces. I used a scrap piece of thin plywood to prevent overspray inside the lower cabinet.

Thinking that I would leave the MCM hutch a dark blue; however, it wasn’t the color I intended. I got the color mixed up with another, oops, blue.

Replacing Glass Shelves With Wooden Shelves

Did you notice that the buffet was missing shelves? They were glass and were broken when they arrived at my home. Honestly, I have no idea if they were already broken or perhaps they broke when there was a “load” shift in the truck. I had no idea the shelves were glass when I bought the furniture piece, or I would have transported them separately. In the bottom image, you can see the difference in the colors of the blue paint.

Related Content: Navy Blue Furniture Projects

The buffet is beautiful after two light coats of the chalky paint primer and two light coats of the navy (dark denim) top coat!

Replace Hardware

It’s time to put the hardware back on. The top left photo shows that I put the hinge on wrong—even after looking at the picture. I was not paying attention to the knuckle. It needed to rest beside the edge of the door. I also added the magnet closures and the plates that line up with the magnets.

The plan was to add some decorative brass metal where the glass had been. The pieces I had were not large enough. I didn’t want to invest any more money in the buffet now. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you would do with the naked hutch doors.

EDITED TO ADD: Melanie on FB said, “I liked the doors hung the original way. But besides that, it is awesome.” Too funny! I didn’t even realize I hung the doors upside down. So, now I have another question for you . . . should I FLIP them back?

For now, I added some pieces to take pictures, and being sans glass made it a LOT easier to photograph.

You can see that I didn’t paint the inside of the bottom cabinet.

I would love for you to PIN IT!

Please leave your thoughts in a comment below, by email, or on Facebook about what I should do about the missing glass. Would it be ridiculous to have a mid-century hutch like this with naked doors?

gail

See other buffets I’ve done below:

Country Hutch Makeover

Black hutch makeover