What is the difference between a china cabinet and a hutch?

If done correctly, your china cabinet can be a work of art. When designing your cabinet divide it into three sections - left, middle and right side. Most china cabinets come with three shelves and it is a good idea to coordinate each shelf with similar groupings. If your cabinet has a light on the inside at the top, I recommend displaying your crystal items on the top shelf. The middle of the second shelf is your focal point. I recommend displaying a complete place setting of your china. On either side display other items that match your place setting. On the bottom shelf, place a few key pieces from your china set - such as a gravy boat or a set of salt and pepper shakers.

Here is an image of a well-designed china cabinet -

There are many reasons I would recommend owning a china cabinet. They are a great decorating tool, presenting your expensive china as ornamentation. They also provide your fine china with a protective home. You can buy cabinets with doors that lock for better protection. Lastly, if you don't have any china to display, they can be a great display case for another type of collection you may have.

China cabinets are more often used to store fine china dish sets. Most often, people choose to display china that is not used very often, usually around Thanksgiving/Christmas. They are considered a more formal piece of furniture. Curio cabinets, on the other hand, are used to display various items of importance.

It's a good question - it's not as easy as it looks to make your stuff look good on a china cabinet. You need to plan what kind of look you are going for and what your main pieces are that you want to focus on. Here's a good article that helped me when I was putting my display together http://www.essortment.com/organize-china-cabinet-display-china-dishes-11723.html

most china cabinets are built with drawers underneath the shelving unit, so that you can keep some stuff without having to display it all (and dust it!). Here's a link to a website that shows their range of cabinets with drawers.
http://www.thefind.com/furniture/info-3-drawer-china-cabinet-hutch

China cabinets are made from wood. But you can choose whether you want unfinished (which is usually cheaper), stained, painted or antique woods. Antique wood china cabinets can cost a fortune depending on their history. So figure out your budget and go from there.

Take some sandpaper and sand down each outside edge of thedrawer where it meets the hutch. This should help you to move the drawer easier.

It could be that the paint on the drawer is too thick - youshould take a heat gun and scraper and remove any excess paint from the sitesof the drawer by heating the paint and scraping of the excess, try not to burnthe outside edge of the paint as you will still want it to look good.

All china cabinets should be illuminated with some type ofoverhead lighting. You should have atleast 2 light fixtures on each shelf that are used with low wattage bulbs. You should line the bottom of each shelf withfabric of some sort. Personally, I linemy china cabinet shelves with doilies. Also, you want to line the back of each shelf with a mirror so that yourchina collection appears much bigger than it is. You can also get festive with your cabinetand put in different decorations depending on the season. I love decorating my cabinet with tinsel andmistletoe on Christmas.