Garage Sale Treasures - Roll Top Hutch

     My mother and I came across this lovely piece at a neighborhood-wide garage sale in our hometown this last weekend, and I just had to get it!  We took this one home for only $20, and I couldn't be happier with the results!  Of all of the pieces I have completed so far, this was by far the easiest and quickest, but also turned out very beautiful.  All it took was a clean, some finish restoring liquid, and paint for the hardware.

Completed Hutch!  I love the warm wood color and the modern touch of the bronzed hardware.

     The best part about this project is that I already had the paint and the finish restoring liquid.  This piece first needed to be be completely clean and dust-free, so I set about cleaning it with warm water and a touch of gentle dish soap.  After the hutch was clean and completely dry I reviewed the status of the wood, and I was honestly concerned that the finish restoring liquid would not be enough to address the scratches all over the wood.

BEFORE:

     Applying the finish restoring liquid was very easy.  All that is required is a soft cloth to rub it on and then wipe it dry off the wood.  I used soft blue disposable shop towels for that task and applied the restoring liquid liberally.  I used restoring liquid we already had in the garage from a previous project in a darker shade, but I liked what that did to the wood color.  This stuff worked miracles on all those little scratches!

     All that was left was to take all the hardware I had removed from the piece and scrub them clean.  The gold finish that originally was on them was pretty damaged, so I elected to paint the set of hardware with paint I had from a different project.  The hammered finish comes from the paint itself, and I think is visually interesting.

    All together, the project took only a few hours, and was simple enough for anyone to do!  I look forward to trying out this type of finish restoring liquid on more projects in the future.