So after making the bench for the family room, I was officially hooked on making my own furniture. The next project was an easy sell for my husband, because the shelf I'd be replacing he happens to hate. :) So I went back to Ana's blog and found the plans for the Thomas cabinet and hutch.
I didn't even need to alter the plans, save for allowing that I was not going to be pushing the cabinet up against anything. So after making allowances for the tops to overhang evenly on both sides and buying enough moulding to go around 3-sides of the piece I was good to go.
I started off with building the cabinet and that was cake. Ana's plans make it so easy to follow and assemble the project. I did wait to build the door; however, until everything was built. The hutch was equally as easy to construct. I was a little nervous about how large the header was but I decided to go with it because I would be adding crown moulding. The only hitch I came across was the plan said to put the bottom shelf of the cabinet 3 1/2" up from the bottom and then add 3 1/2" base moulding. I couldn't find any 3 1/2" moulding. I could only find 3 1/4" moulding, so I added another 1x2 beneath the shelf and just puttied across the seam so it looks seamless now.
I also should have measured how far the top extended from the side of the hutch, because the first crown I bought was 1/4" to wide, which, of course, I didn't notice until after I'd cut the first piece. So after a trip to Lowe's, I bought slightly smaller crown and then it was all good. Figuring out the angles for the crown was also interesting, but a quick google search told me what I needed to know, and luckily, we have a compound miter saw which made the job a lot easier. The bevel should be at 33.85 and the angle at 31.6, but as you can see the moulding ended up working out and I'm quite pleased with the results.
I knew I wanted the piece to be an antique white, but it's so cold here now that I can't spray paint, so I went with latex. I was able to paint it inside without worrying about to many fumes for the kids.
After the paint dried overnight, I was able to add the glaze. Now I usually have a very specific idea of what I want a piece to look like after I get done with it, but occasionally my idea doesn't pan out in reality, which is what I was really nervous about. I've never done any glazing and most of the specialty painting techniques that I've tried have not turned out the way I expected. So I practiced on a scrap sheet of beadboard. I brushed the glaze on then wiped it off with a rag....and wiped some more until I was happy with how it looked. Then I ran it by my boys.....and when we were all happy with it I got to work on the inside of the cabinet. I'm so brave. After the inside of the cabinet turned out the way I wanted I did the rest of pieces and then let it dry for the rest of the day. 
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