My Stepback Reveal

If you've been following me on Instagram and Facebook, you probably know of my recent purchase.

My mud room gets wonderful lighting, which stirred up the desire to use that room for working on projects. When we bought our house last year, I thought I would paint and work on projects in our big basement, however I kept finding myself working on things upstairs where there is more sunlight and people. Now I want to use my mud room for this purpose.  

I  love old cupboards, hutches and stepbacks. I like the idea of using them for storage. I was really excited when I found a reproduction of an old stepback for a great price

They are called stepbacks for the simple reason that the top is set back farther than the bottom piece. I loved the black crackled paint over the red, the old looking wood door latch, and the deep bottom cabinet. What I wasn't so crazy about was the berry red back.

I was less enthused when I set my little collection of yellowware on it.

Regretting the purchase of this cabinet, I told myself to just let it set and get inspired by Pinterest.  So I did. I thought of repainting the whole thing, in the yellow color that I used in my mud room, because there were some scuff marks all around the piece.

BUT I  truly loved the black chippyness.

Searching Pinterest was helpful, but what really helped me was just looking at my hutch I painted last year. The one thing I loved was the wood background.

That would be my first step, to sand off that berry red background. If I couldn't fix the scuff marks then I would repaint the entire piece. As I sanded, I knew I made the right decision.

I started feeling extremely thankful for the person who painted it red, because it left a great layered look to the piece that wouldn't have been there had they not painted it. 

 It looked beautiful just natural.

Next, I was thinking about staining it, but I really liked the way the School Master's Desk turned out that I decided to use dark wax instead.

With my wax brush and cheap dollar brush (to get into the corners), I applied the wax. I soon realized I  loved using the cheap brush over the wax brush. The wax went on so easily. 

Here is a pic so you can see the wood with and without the wax.

Testing the dark wax on the scuff marks, I learned that it hid them well and decided to cover the WHOLE piece with dark wax.

She buffed up nicely

I am super excited at how it turned out, and I love all the room to store our school things!
The other hutch looks great in the mud room and I look forward to organizing my craft supplies in that!