My Shabby Chic Desk/Hutch has been one of my favorite projects so far using our Missouri Limestone Company’s Chalk-based paint.  I personally paint furniture to sell with this paint we distribute through our SharSum Paint company and really fall in love with some of the things I paint.

You can read through the transformation below, or if you are in a hurry and want to come back to this wonderful piece of writing later, just scroll to the bottom to see this Shabby Chic Desk/Hutch Set in all its glory!

I really, really would love to keep this one but just don’t have the room in my house.  As of now, it is for sale.  Like it?  Pay my too low asking price of $215 and the shipping charges (which would probably be astronomical) and it’s yours!  : )  I’ve often wondered how individuals on sites like ebay and etsy ship huge pieces of furniture.  I can just see me wrapping this up in brown paper and taking it to our local hardware store for UPS pickup.

Seriously, I do have it for sale on Facebook’s Marketplace.  If you are looking for projects to paint or have something to sell, this is a great place to do it.  Marketplace somehow finds all the swap sites on Facebook (according to your desired location setting) and puts them in one place .  You don’t even have to a member of those sites.  I have bought and sold several things through Marketplace.  I love this service!  P.S.  I just noticed this set has been viewed by 509 people in the last two days.  Wow!

But first, the history of the desk/hutch.  I found this set on one of the swap sites.  It sat smack dab in my living room for months!  As you can see a floor lamp is on the desk at this point.  I would look at that huge hutch and think, “How am I ever going to paint those little letter cubby areas” and then get overwhelmed with how huge a project like this would be.

I couldn’t think what I wanted to do with it, so I finally sold it to my friend, Michelle, who carries our paint in her store and paints projects right along with me.  We call ourselves Lucy and Ethel.  Funny thing, that’s not the first time a friend and I have had those nicknames and I always seem to be Lucy.  Hmmmm.

But then…..a previous customer who had bought a desk from me earlier for one of her daughters contacted me and wanted me to find and paint another for another daughter.  Sure!  No problem.  I knew just the desk. It even looked somewhat like the one she bought earlier. She probably wouldn’t want the hutch, but I sent a quick text to Michelle to see if she still had it in her stash and back it came. Only catch was, I had to take the hutch back, too!  I sometimes feel we spend more time shuffling furniture around than actually painting.  🙂  So then it was back in the living room again.

Now, to find inspiration for the desk.  I started searching and came upon this awesome blog.  Would you believe this lady had the same exact desk I had?  Not only was it painted with an absolutely beautiful shabby chic look, she even had a tutorial on how she did it!! Her blog is called “How to Nest for Less” and her desk tutorial can be found here.  Thank you, thank you, Erin!

Erin’s painting idea was genius!  Dry brush distress right over the desk as it is.  I painted the desk first and realized that it just had to have the hutch.  However, both pieces would be way too big for this little girl’s room.  I happened to have just finished another smaller desk/hutch in a blush pink and suggested this one instead to the customer.  She loved it for her daughter!  SOLD!  I’m going to paint a chair to match and….she is also buying a dresser to match the desk set she bought earlier.  It was a good week for furniture selling.

Back to the Shabby/Chic desk set.  I now had the desk completed, with new knobs (actually clear resin knobs I found at a yard sale and painted “Vintage Coral” and pulls spray painted silver with the wood part painted “Vintage Coral”.

I was ready to tackle the hutch. As I was painting it, I decided to take the cork board off and paint it.  I had researched and found it was best to shellac it before painting, so Danny (my husband and partner in all of this) used our handy dandy Zinsser Bulls-Eye Shellac on it. That worked like a charm and the paint just glided on.  Then I figured it would be easier to paint the back if it was off.  When it came off, we discovered the shelves and letter cubby things all slid out and I was able to paint each piece separately!!!  Yahoo!  And I’d been so stuck on what trouble that was going to be.

Corkboard – shellac first

hutch without back

letter cubbies came apart

I finished up the hutch and if the desk looked pretty before, once we put the hutch on top the transformation was amazing.  This set is officially GORGEOUS! I added a shabby/chic chair to match and it was ready to sell!  Oh and did I mention, the hutch has a light?  Right now, there are two people interested in it, so it is going to sell quickly, I think.  But maybe not too quickly.  I like looking at it as it sits in my crowded dining room and going over every once in awhile and sitting at it and running my hand across the top.

I do believe I’m a little obsessed over this project.

Are you ready for the reveal?