Hutch - Trimmed and Backed

Remember that big list of things to accomplish for the hutch in our dining room? Well, you saw that we bought some beadboard and I painted it. Now, we get to install it! 

The Mister, playing a little air guitar on a shopping trip.

Typical.

We took that lovely piece of 1x2x8 home to serve as trim between the hutch and the desk where the beadboard meets the top. The Mister used his miter box and saw to make the perfect 90 degree cuts. Then I pulled out my trusty Olympic paint in Drifting Dune and got to work!

Once the trim was painted and cured up, The Mister pulled out his newest fancy tool - a Kreg jig. It is used to make pocket holes to join together wood. It's a sneaky way to build furniture where screws are hidden away. 

A few measurements, clamps, and a little drilling later, you get this lovely pocket hole.

Once those fancy holes were drilled, we screwed the support in to the hutch. Doesn't that look professional? 

That extra trim at the bottom not only makes attaching the beadboard easier and gives a more polished look, but it also helps support the base of the hutch better, structurally.

The cuts and measurements are so perfect that we had to slightly bow the beadboard. It is super snug.

Once we saw it fit, The Mister flipped the beadboard around where the back was visible from the front to draw guides along the shelves for accurate placement of the screws.

We thought about our different choices in hardware for attaching the beadboard to the hutch and narrowed it down to two options: tacks or pickguard screws. Pickguard screws are used on guitars to attach the pickguard to the guiter body. A problem I often have with tacks is after a while, pressure in the "right" places causes the tack to get loose and the backing pops off. The Mister wanted the option of easily disassembling the hutch to repaint, repair, or do any other little thing our hearts desired. So, we chose the screws.  

The Mister predrilled with a 5/64 inch drillbit about 3/4 inch deep.

If you squint, you can see the sharpie drawn guides with 3 screws per shelf (left, middle, and right sides) and 2 screws at the trim, just in the corner, to total 14 screws.

So here is the before meets after at this point.

  

So, what is left for this piece o' furniture?

• Glass in the doors - Hubby wants to find some antiqued glass
• Magnets to keep doors closed (so we can nix the twine)
• Resquare and support doors
• Resquare and support lower desk
• Line drawers with pretty paper
• Repaint due to my staining fiasco and messy rag handling
• Wax up those drawer guides (Originally, I wanted to shape out the guides in acrylic so the drawers could pull out easier. However, research has helped me discover that wax can work the same way at a fraction of the cost and time. Woohoo!)

It is coming along!