Hi friends!

I hope you had a great weekend! Maybe you have been doing some traveling, or maybe you are currently on a little getaway! Every year, my family and I go away during 4th of July week to a local campground where we can just relax and get off the grid for a bit! I love the simplicity of it and being a little more intentional and quiet with our time!

At FunCycled, we love working with clients to help restore and breathe new life into old pieces of furniture. Whether it is a chair, a side table, or bedroom furniture, taking something that is tired and refreshing it truly brings life to me and my team!

For one of my clients, Darcy, she and her husband were in the midst of selling one house and making the move to a new location in the Capital Region. As part of their plans, Darcy and her husband wanted to find a way to incorporate a special piece of furniture into the design of their new kitchen. When we met with Darcy to talk through her ideas, Darcy shared some photos of the total the kitchen renovation taking place in her new home and talked about how she was hoping to make her oversized secretary hutch to work with the design. Take a look at some before photos below. The photo in the middle is from our studio as we began prepping to paint!

What I love the most about this type of project is seeing the true craftsmanship of furniture! For Darcy’s piece, there is something extra about it though. I love the scale of it and the fact that it has shelves above enclosed behind detailed glass and ample closed in storage below–all surrounding the desk & accompanying compartments which live at the very center of the piece! To me, it could boast a million uses, but I guess its intent is to remain for exactly its purpose in Darcy’s new home! If you want to know more about the history and origin of secretary desks (sometimes I just have to scratch that curiosity itch!), I found this really cool article: What Exactly is a Secretary Desk and What is it Used for?

For this project, we used Benjamin Moore’s White Dove on the whole piece. I love the warmth of this beautiful white!

And here are some after photos, including some close ups of the detail work on this hutch. See what I mean about the craftsmanship? It is so stunning! You will see that Darcy decided to keep the original hardware for this

And some additional close ups of the beautiful detials!

Bonus: How FunCycled Does Hutches Secretary Desks

I have pulled together some of our hutch and secretary desk upcycled projects over the years! Take a look and be inspired!

Below I have pulled together 3 inspiration photos to share with you in case you are looking to have a beautifully painted hutch or secretary for your home and you would like to see some other offerings that maybe we have not shown above! I would love to take on any of these inspirations for you!

Pinterest

Pinterest

Pinterest

A huge thanks to Darcy or hiring us to do take on this furniture project. We loved breathing new life into this special piece for your new home!

If you have a hutch or secretary desk (or plan to get one soon!) and would like us to restore life back into it, contact me today by visiting our Contact Us page! You can also learn more about our process on our Custom Furniture Painting Page.

Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture. 

If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations. 

We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do. 

Happy FunCycling Friends,

Sarah ; )

Hi Friends!

I hope you had a great weekend! Mine was fantastic both personally and professionally! We hosted our Earth Day Upcycling Contest this past Saturday. It was such a great event, and I am so grateful for those who participated. My hope is that perhaps it served to inspire others to think creatively and to consider repurposing and upcycling! Congratulations to Tami, our Grand Prize Winner and to Ryan, our Staff Pick Winner!

If you are having trouble viewing the photos, click here.

At FunCycled, we love working with clients to help restore and breathe new life into old pieces of furniture. Whether it is a chair, a side table, or bedroom furniture, taking something that is tired and refreshing it truly brings life to me and my team!

My friend and past client Brielle reached out to me to see if I could help her find a hutch for her dining room. She had a large, empty wall so we knew we had to find something large and tall. She gave me her budget and I got to work! In less than a day, I found this beauty and picked it up for her. It’s over 85″ long, and so full of character!! Take a look at the before photo:

We painted the whole piece (inside and out) in Benjamin Moore’s White Sand (image below). White Sand is a beautiful neutral color which met the goal of brightening up this hutch and yet keeping it warm.

And just check out this lovely transformation! With a lighter color paint, you are now able to appreciate the details of the molding at the top and edges of this hutch. Plus, the lighter color helps highlight the window lattice on the glass doors. Put simply, it is beautiful!

Here’s a closer look at the details! We also changed the hardware for our client to bring a more modern touch to the finished look!

A huge thanks to Brielle for hiring us to do take on this furniture project. We are so glad you love the outcome! We do, too : )

Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture. 

If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations. 

We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do. 

Happy FunCycling Friends,

Sarah ; )

Hi Friends!

How are you? I hope you enjoyed the last peak weekend in Upstate Ny! We had a beautiful weekend opening our home for the first time for tours at our Repurposed Idea House. We had such a blast! Thank you to everyone who came out to see us!

Here are some highlights from the day:

This week’s makeover shows how paint and new hardware can dramatically change a hutch. Hutches are one of my favorite furniture pieces to redo because the transformation is huge!

Here’s the hutch before:

We painted it with Benjamin Moore Cloud Nine 2144-60 and added new hardware.

If you want to see how we paint furniture, check out our How to Paint Furniture post. 

Ready for the afters?

This was done as a custom order so it’s not for sale, but I still wanted to share the transformation. 

Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture. 

If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations. 

We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do. 

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

Hi Friends!

How was your holidays? We had a wonderful Christmas… probably our favorite in a long time. We loved being in our Repurposed Ideas House with rooms big enough to host the whole family comfortably. I know I showed you some of our Christmas decorations last week, but I also wanted to quickly show you how we decorated the dining room/ family room for Christmas dinner.

Modern Farmhouse Christmas Decorations

Repurposed Idea House Modern Farmhouse Christmas

When you can’t fit them at the table, make the coffee table work for more seating.

For this week’s furniture makeover, this is a hutch that we redid as a custom order just in time for Christmas. Vanessa wanted us to give the hutch that was her mother’s a new look and new life. Here it was before:

When I sent her the after pictures… this was her reply, “Oh. My. Goodness. I LOVE it!! Brought tears to my eyes. The piece was my mother’s and you have brought it back to life and she would’ve adored it :)” That made my day!!

We painted it Benjamin Moore’s Mozart Blue, lightly glazed it, sprayed the hardware oil rubbed bronze, and sprayed it with a protective clear coat.

If you want to see how we paint furniture, check out our How to Paint Furniture post. 
Ready for the transformation???

Mozart Blue Hutch Makeover

This piece was a custom order, but you can check out even more new pieces on our For Sale page.

Navy Trunk

Hutch

Black Carpenters Tool Chest

Light Gray Dresser

Kitchen Cabinet Painting

Red Hutch

Please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture. 

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

If you like what you see, please like FunCycled’s Facebook page to keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We also offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and furniture. We can deliver for customers in upstate NY and also help you ship throughout the US. Send us a note with what you would like using our contact page. Or buy something that we’ve already designed from our online shop.

Hi Friends!

How’s your week going? Ours’ has been great! Feeling healthy and enjoying the sunshine over here. I can’t believe we are already into May!! How has that happened and how is my BABY turning 9 this week?? Time’s flying by!

As for furniture, here’s a beautiful hutch that I had to buy the minute I saw it. These don’t come around often. I loved the lines of the bottom section of the hutch and knew that I wanted to keep a lot of the wood and add a stark contrast with paint.

We deepened the original wood with an ebony stain and painted the other sections using Benjamin Moore’s color Simply White.

If you want to see how we paint furniture, check out our How to Paint Furniture post.

Ready for the afters?

Such an amazing transformation, right?

Not only is this hutch currently up for sale, but you can check out other new furniture for sale on our website here! If you’d like to purchase it, please use our Contact Us form or stop by our store at 272 River Street, Troy, NY. I also added quite a few other new pieces to the store!

There is a box at the top right of this page to enter your email address to receive notifications by email when I post something new on this blog. Please sign up today!

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

If you like what you see, please like FunCycled’s Facebook page to keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. Last but not least, let us customize a furniture piece for you. We create custom furniture and will deliver for customers in upstate NY and also ship throughout the US. Send us a note with what you would like using our contact page. Or buy something that we’ve already designed from our furniture for sale page.