I have to say that our house is quite big now at almost 2200 sqft from it’s original just over 1400 sqft size. But like with most additions adding 700+ sqft to one end of the house couldn’t fix the rather cramped general living space that we started with. 2 years ago when it was finished (well except flooring & trim, but we are getting that done soon hopefully) a lot of our stuff has been moved up into our new offices & our family room. That being said that left our general living space a bit sparce… don’t get me wrong I love the more open space but with 4 small kids the lack of storage down there was simply killing me! We literally had one small drawer in our play area/casual living room/dining room AND I had given it to the kids to store their DVD’s.
So this summer hubby & I agreed that I needed a few more pieces of furniture to help give us some much needed to storage for all of our books, magazines & the bigger kids art supplies and any other items that the baby does not need access too. I started hitting the garage sales but didn’t have a much luck. I did score a nice full size bookcase for $25 in greet condition. It wasn’t solid wood but it wasn’t the super cheap kind either which was a okay with me. Then we got one of the cheap black bookcases in the back to school section of Wal-mart for $25… so we swapped that out for the nice solid wood one in hubbies office that fit much better down stairs. 2 bookcases along made a HUGE difference, but I still ran into one problem, what about all the stuff we don’t really want to see displayed on a bookcase? Then it came to me, a hutch was just what we needed!
So I set out to find a simple hutch that fit our needs… let’s just say we had a case of serious sticker shock! The cheapest hutches we could find new were $650+ and online only so we had no clue what we were really getting until it showed up. The stuff we found in stores was even more at $900+. So I decided to start looking for a project on Craigslist. I have to say even that gave me some serious sticker shock! Most people wanted $200+ for 80’s china cabinets & hutches that were huge, weighted a million pounds and no matter what we did would NOT fit in with our house. So after weeks of searching when a hutch the style I liked popped up for $125 I nabbed it! We spent about $55 on paint (with built in primer since it was red), stain & new hardware making it about a $180 hutch which considering it’s just the style we wanted I think is great. Hubby worked on it 30 minutes at a time here & there over the last few months and finally finished the bottom half which is which has all the closed storage so today he finished putting the tip back on & brought it upstairs!
I have to say the color is spot on because when I set out recent family picture on it temporarily the reds are nearly identical, now I really can’t wait for him to finish the other half! If I wasn’t so busy sewing & crocheting for Etsy and family gifts I would help him, but that’s okay because even as it is I am loving it & it is already helping in our lack of storage area and he enjoys the quiet time by himself working on his projects in the garage. Anyway they aren’t great, but here are a few pictures.
BEFORE: This is the picture used in the Craigslist ad.
BOTTOM AFTER: Sorry for the bad cell phone picture I will replace it soon!
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