Jesyka D'Itri over at Visual Vocabulary did a remarkable makeover on a china hutch a few months ago. The original piece had a lot of scratches, missing pieces and a broken door, but she really kept on it and was able to bring it back to life in a very unique, stylized and surprising way...

After sanding and stripping the wood, repairing the door and getting new glass for the broken cabinet, Jesyka was ready to get her style on.
She wanted to paint this piece and wasn't going to take the easy way out, instead she had a vision for it that would take some time and precision. She created a cool tri-colored effect with the blue, white and gold trim and added a nice touch of texture with the gold and white chevron contact paper. The finished piece is a one-of-a-kind eye-catching piece that shows a lot of love went into making it a reality.

See more images of the china hutch makeover and the rest of Jesyka's post here.
Images: Jesyka D'Itri


Sprout Side Table
This is beautiful - makes me wish I had a similar piece (or a place to put it) to do this!
My mom did something just like this many years ago, except instead of replacing the glass she put gold wire along the backs of the doors.
i just love this. so pretty!
You know, this is not something that I ever would have thought of doing myself, but having seen the after shot -- wow! The gold trim really makes it spectacular.
Beautiful.
Very nice! I did something similar with an old 70's style china cabinet two years ago, but she did hers much better! It makes me want to redo my cabinet.
wow, gorgeous. i just remade a hutch myself - quite a bit more straightforwardly -- but i used paper liners from chicshelfpaper.com to line the shelving and it's quite dramatic and lovely. i just love the contrast of a graphic paper with paint, and that's been executed beautifully here. at first i thought the artist kept the original drawer pulls, but at second glance they seem to be in the same family but different.
Gorgeous!
The fabric on that chair is divine too!
Wowza. Who would've thought you could take such a heavy, clunky piece of furniture and lighten it up SO much?!!? Amazing transformation.
Well, that is certainly a change.
I love china cabinets -- what's not to love about beautiful pieces with a mix of open and closed storage? -- and (at least around here) they go for ridiculously cheap on craigslist. I think it's partly because they're old-fashioned and partly because, well, whose apartment has room for a bulky piece of furniture?
I was lucky enough to get my hands on one, and I wish I had room for more. As long as the glass is intact, it seems like they're well suited for easy and cheap makeovers. This one has a whole lot going on for my taste, but it does show how drastic the update can be.
Wow, that's incredible!! love the new look!
F@ck me that's gorgeous!!!
I love the fabric choice on the back! Definitely gives me ideas for when I upgrade my own china hutch.
Buh. More for you guys.
You can love it and squeeze it and call it 'Marie' (Antoinette, for this seems very french influenced from her era...)
She did a nice paint job, but the lines of this piece are way way too busy for my taste. Imo, not every piece can be improved with painting.
Oooooh Aaaaah, great job ! My Mom also used to do things like this, so pretty.
Lol @ Tinydabney. It is really pretty. I would never ever pick gold but I actually love it here! I should probably step out of my comfort zone more often when it comes to things like this because I always like the results on here.
DYING OF LOVE.
Great job recycling this dated piece! It now has so much personality! Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful! I love the gold trim! You sure made that old outdated hutch look awesome!
Susan @ homeroad.net
It is absolutely gorgeous.
And to think I got rid of a lot of furniture in the 80's and 90's that I could have recycled into something funky like this. Damn!
How DARE you not live up to my expectations?! You paint that thing glossy white right NAO, like everyone/thing else on here! Your creativity has no place here! </troll>
Damn, that thing is gorgeous! I'm glad to see some true creativity here! Kudoos!
Divine!!!
love the contact paper background. great neutral color and interesting pattern.
Well, that's a stunner. My jaw literally swung open. It takes a lot to make me do that. Gorgeous!! I love being surprised.
It makes me smile, because it looks like it's grinning a big, goofy, bucktoothed grin.
wow. absolutely amazing!
Amazing. Way to make a landfill piece into a show piece. Bravo.
Not something I could live with, but I have to admit that the metamorphosis is spectacular.
I had a little (cheap pressboard) cabinet that served a useful purpose in my last apartment. It had some of that deep routered outlining, and a carved pinecone design in the center. I used wood filler to flatten the routered border which I didn't like at all. I sanded it smooth. Then I spray painted the whole thing with some textured paint meant for car trunks! It was a speckled light green/gray/tan combination, as I recall. I antiqued the pine design with acrylic paint and voila! A funky cabinet that filled a need until I moved, and then, since it cost me $3 plus paint, I could trash it with impunity!
Actually pretty sick of this one. First I saw it on her blog when she did it, then on Design Sponge, and now here! It's nice but come on, Design Blogs are becoming super-incestuous and there's no point for me to read more than one if you're all going to post the same stuff. Please don't show her birdcage chandelier next. (This was an AT gripe, not a gripe at the pretty hutch.)
Stunning!
Not my style at all, but nice craftsmanship.
Not my style, but it's definitely an improvement.
That wallpaper inside there is so perfect for that border stuff on the dresser, that it's just not funny. I LOVE this. No, really, I mean it.
It's gone from hideous to cartoonish... which is a step up, I guess. I don't understand why she didn't strip some of that excessive trim off, and why the knobs on the doors are different.
I've always wondered: could anything with eagle drawer pulls look good? Because there is a LOT of furniture in this style. Now I'd like her to take on the ubiquitous dining set that goes with this hutch. If she could make that look good, I'd be really impressed.
Not my style, either, but still very impressive!
By the way... can we have more about that chair? LOVE it!
Nice work.It is very Martha Stewartish. I am addicted to these before and after photos.
Stunning . Ignore the haters; they're everywhere. You did a great job and it is a very creative approach. French Provencal goes Mod; if it's Marie Antoinette, she's certainly got a few tats and chopped her dress off....
Come on ... that AMAZING!
Amazing transformation (not my taste - the original would be Craigslist fodder for sure!) But wow, so much impact.
It reminds me very much of the set we did in college for Into the Woods - I liked to call it Heightened Fairy Tale.
Wow! This is stunning! Nice job!
Love the job you did with the hutch and the attention to fine detail--super cute!
I agree with Put a Bird on It, however, concerning the lack of attribution on design blogs. If your image and words are already published on the web, then subsequent uses of that particular image should appear as links.
Not as new material.
Posting willy-nilly is not good for the design blog world. It is becoming incestuous and annoying. Uncurtailed, it will sap the blogs of creativity and new ideas.
PS There's nothing wrong with saving already published ideas and bringing them together in an article concerning a theme or niche not readily recognized as a trendy.
But merely picking up ideas from other blogs diminishes yours.
Wasn't this JUST posted a month or 2 ago? Along with how she made the upside down birdcage lamp that's cut off in the photos?
Yikes. That's a bit garish for me, but the execution is amazing.
I get a toothache looking at it. But I applaud anyone willing to recycle something and put their own stylish spin on it. While I think it's urgly - I can still say well done.
Great job with the change. I wonder why everyone decides that they need to share what is and is not their style. Stop the egomania.
i love it! the attention to detail is great. thanks for sharing!
This is ugly. Before AND after!
Not being a 'neutrals' kind of guy I'd have used accent colors, but this is in the spirit of what I look for and appreciate about AT. An out-dated salvage piece gets a fab new life!
Haters...feel better now? Sheesh
I see these giant hutches ALL THE TIME in thrift stores. Alas, I have no place for any hutch that large in my house, but the makeover is quite lovely.
I will say that it reminds me a LOT of a hand-me-down bedroom set I had as a child. It was a four poster bed, dresser, side table, and desk with hutch on top all in cream with routered curlicue designs everywhere which had been painted gold. Sloppily, I might add. I've seen the same furniture elsewhere. This piece is clearly much nicer, but all that gold in the carved bits can't help but remind me of my childhood.