China Hutch Refresh

Our china hutch got a bit of refresh.  The inside, at least.  This cabinet was Rick’s mom’s and she gave it to us about 20 years ago.  Interestingly enough she always referred to it as a gun cabinet even though it isn’t set up inside to be one, nor has it ever been used as one.

It has served as a china cabinet, a linen cabinet and now houses crystal and glassware.  I’m not sure what type of wood it is made out of – could be walnut or maybe oak.  At any rate I didn’t want to paint it because that is too permanent so I looked into removable wallpaper to lighten up the interior.

I wanted a linen or grass cloth like interior and ended up ordering this peel and stick wallpaper from Amazon.  The rolls are a little shorter than standard wallpaper rolls and I ended up needing three rolls for the project.   I confess that I didn’t pay attention to the length of the rolls when I first ordered and thought that one roll would do the trick.  I used to hang wallpaper for a living and usually wallpaper comes in double rolls which would have been plenty.  I had to pause a bit for additional rolls to arrive which meant all the crystal and glassware took up most of the counter space in our kitchen for a few days.

It did give me the opportunity to give everything a good wash.  How is it that glassware can get dirty inside a closed cabinet?  It’s not like the doors are opened all that often but everything had a weird film on it.  Side note – do you have any idea how nerve wracking it is to wash four dozen pieces of stemware?  Some of it quite old and delicate.  Very, let me tell you.

The first piece went up like a dream.  I peeled away the backing at the top and positioned the paper and then slowly peeled and pressed the rest of the strip, smoothing it down with a credit card (Ikea Friends & Family membership card, to be precise….) as I went.

The second strip was a nightmare.  I couldn’t get it to go down smooth and wrinkle free.  I kept peeling it back off and repositioning but still ended up with a handful of small bubbly wrinkles that I couldn’t smooth out to save my life.  In the end, when the selves and glassware are in, you can’t see them so no biggie.

I think it turned out rather nice in the end.  It really does look like a linen lined cabinet now.  If I ever get tired of the color I can either paint over it or just remove it and go back to the original wood.

Here’s a tip for you if you ever attempt a similar project.  Make note of where the holes are that the shelf support pegs go in.  They get covered by the paper and are hard to locate.  I measured the distance from the top of the cabinet and the back of the cabinet of each hole and it was easy to pop the pegs back in.

I think it elevates both my pressed glass Anchor Hocking and my Waterford crystal.  No playing favorites here.  The only thing that didn’t make it back into the cabinet is a set of pale pink martini glasses that kind of messed up my color palette.

I also need to find a new spot for the silver tea service that sat on top of the cabinet.  When I was looking at the before pictures it just looked so sad and dusty.  I’ve tried polishing that set to no avail.  That black tarnish just doesn’t want to come off.  So I polished up a silver ice bucket and plopped a Boston fern in it.  Let’s see how long I can keep it alive.