DIY Project For the Home A Wall Hutch

DIY Wall Hutch for the Living Room

DIY Wood Project that can be done in one weekend.

Done!

I have such a surprise for you. I found a picture and instantly fell in love with a wall hutch that was in it.

So after looking at it repeatedly, I finally bought the lumber and "G" and I made our version of it.

This is my inspiration piece below.

Source

Mine is going to have a modern industrial feel to it. So let's get started!

Now everyone has their own way of making a wooden box. So for the purpose of time, I am going to simply say our box or "hutch" is sized to fit above our couch. The rectangle measures 8' x 4'-5" tall. 

The material list:

• Grade A Pine Lumber - For the outer portions only. Top, bottom & sides. (1"x6"x8')
• Grade B Pine lumber (1"x6"x8') For the shelves & shelving support
• Kreg pocket hole jig
• kreg pocket hole plugs
• kreg pocket screws
• pallet banding
• furniture tacks
• chestnut gel stain
• belt sander
• hole punch
• dremel
• sand paper
• pine button tops
• clamps (various sizes)
• 4-1/2" x 10' pine crown molding

Cost for this DIY project:   $83.00
Disclaimer: The pallet banding, sand paper and tools we already had on hand. The $$ was for all the lumber, screws, stain, wooden plugs, furniture tacks, crown molding and wood buttons.  

Tip #1 - pick your crown molding first. The type of wood for the molding will dictate what 1"x6"'s to buy. Pine is cheap, and I found 4-1/2" crown molding that I liked. Oak molding and lumber would have doubled the cost for this diy project.

I am not going to bore you with a step by step on how "G" made me a huge rectangle box. This post is already "long" on pictures and we haven't even hung it up yet!

Blitz - Job Foreman. Responsible for safety, water breaks and kisses.

Once the rectangle was built, I got to decide on shelf width and how many.

Below you can see we added a 1"x2"x8' scrap piece of pine. This is going to be where we screw it into the wall studs.

I want this baby to be secured to the wall!

So there is a second one on the bottom shelf also.

Since these screw holes are visible, we bought "Kreg Pocket Hole Plugs" to insert inside them to cover the screws.

We didn't bother to read any instructions on these, we assumed it was fairly straight forward.

Insert plug and sand down. But "G" used his belt sander first, then we inserted them. The final sanding will happen right before I stain it.

The belt sander made it quick, we had all 50 sanded down in less than 20 minutes

Next it was measuring out where to put the wood buttons on the outer right and left side of the hutch.

Note, we forgot to take in account the crown molding, so the "top" buttons ended up being removed. Oh well, lesson learned.

"G" spaced the buttons 1-1/2" off the face and back.

Using a spade drill bit he drilled small round pocket holes, and we glued the buttons in each hole.

At 8' long we knew that "sagging" in the middle would be an issue. Especially since we chose 1"x6" lumber. So we added some pine support.

I chose to offset it. So it is not perfectly centered.

Time for crown molding. Let me say this; if it were up to me to cut, miter and nail crown molding?

I'd be broke and homeless and there would be dead carcasses of crown molding all over the state of Indiana.

and I think he did a superb job!

Time to stain!

For this project, I wanted a rich barn brown color.

And I got it!

This is the first time I have ever used gel stain, and would probably buy it again. 

Tip #2 the gel stain says wait 3 minutes before wiping it off. We did this outside on a 78 degree day and 3 minutes was too long. There are a couple of spots where the stain got so sticky, it was glueing the paper towel to the wood. So we sanded the areas that I felt were too dark, after 8 hours of dry time.

For the shelf support and shelving we used the Grade B lumber. I wanted knots and character for this piece.

But not on the perimeter.

Tip #3

Don't make any cuts where there is a knot in the wood. It will split right in half.

A couple of the grade B pieces I bought had knots on the outer edges. I had a vision.

Pallet Banding

Pallet banding (for those unfamiliar with it) is thin metal strapping used to ship heavy objects. Like engines, mufflers, furniture.

"G" scrounged this on his travels, but you could find it to buy on the internet. It's lightweight, and can be cut more easily than steel flat bar. I am going to combine this metal banding with furniture tacks to add that industrial modern touch.

Using a belt sander (but normal muscle and sandpaper would take the black coating off as well) "G" sanded off the black color, leaving a nice patina.

It can be sanded to a solid grey steel, but I liked the patina.

I had a pack of brass furniture tacks and started playing with one to see if I'd like brass or if another color would be better.

Furniture tacks can be bought at any local home improvement store. 

I wasn't sure if the patina finish and brass was working, so "G" sanded the other side and took off all the black.

Nope. It didn't say Industrial to me. Especially since the name of those tacks was "Daisy Brass". So off to the store I went.

I bought silver ones.

"G" asked me before I left about how far apart I wanted the tacks spaced. 

5" apart off the center is what we both liked. By the time I got back home, he had all the holes drilled into the metal banding for the tacks.

We're doing two bands at the top and one at the bottom.

Hammering the tacks in made me nervous. Because the crown molding didn't have a large nailing area. It's secure, it's just not a great place to pound with a hammer. 

Using clamps to hold the metal banding in place, he used a different clamp to push the tack into the wood.

No hammering needed!

And each one went in perfectly straight!

Here he is below, using a large clamp and squeezing the clamp closed, to push the tack into the wood.

And here it is with 2 rows of metal at the top.

Stay tuned for part 2. Finishing the bottom and hanging it up in the Living Room.

XO,