Week 5 & 6 - Cabinets completed!

The Cabinets

I didn't intend to go so long between posts but with the house, Classical Conversations (our homeschool program), my consignment sale, and a few other things going on, my time has been pretty limited.

I'm most excited about my cabinets, so I will finish telling you about those before I catch you up on the rest of the house. 

At the end of my last post, I had the primer on the boxes and doors and we had filled the nail holes with spackle.

When the weekend rolled around again, all the spackle was well dried. I simply folded a piece of sandpaper a few times and used the folded edge to sand the extra spackle in the grooves of my trim pieces. Then I sanded all of the primed doors and boxes with a palm-sander and 120 grit paper. After sanding all of them and painting one door with paint, I realized that my sanding job wasn't quite smooth enough. So I sanded ALL the doors again, with 80 grit. That was fun, I tell ya. Have I mentioned that I hate sanding? I was just happy Eric owns a palm-sander. 

Sanding finally complete, I broke out the paint. The guy at Sherwin Williams suggested going with ProClassic paint for the cabinets because it dried harder than their other paints and was more durable. At $50 per gallon, it wasn't cheap (and much to my chagrin, it went on 40% sale two weeks later!) but it was still less than going with the Rust-o-leum kit. I only needed one coat and used about half a gallon.

I used a brush to paint the fluted trim and get paint into the corners then rolled the rest of the face and lightly rolled outside the trim in order to give the doors a more uniform appearance. I'm pretty OCD about paint lines all going the same direction, etc. Fortunately, this weekend Ethan was visiting with Eric's parents and I didn't have to worry about him toddling all over my doors.

When we began our cabinet re-do, Eric and I knew we wanted to glaze the cabinets to give them more depth. I thought it would be fun to try as I had never glazed anything before. Again, the trusty sales guy at Sherwin Williams told me what to use for the glaze. It comes clear but can be tinted any color you choose. I asked them to tint it black.

Glaze day! I was so excited that I could barely wait to get started....until I tried my first cabinet door. I had saved a few of the doors (same style) from the junked vanities and primed and painted them along with my cabinets so that when it came time to glaze them, I would have somewhere to practice. I had prepped myself by watching tons of YouTube videos and perusing a multitude of blogs. Almost all the experts said you had a pretty big window of time to work with glaze and get it right. Maybe I accidentally bought quick-drying glaze (?) but their "forty-five minute window" was more like five minutes. First it was too heavy, then it was too light, then it looked like a toddler got into shoe polish, then I scrubbed it all off with a wet rag and started over. I repeated that three or four times before I went and got Eric. There may or may not have been a few tears shed. I kinda pride myself on being pretty DIY so it not working was a huge blow to my confidence. Once again, Eric came to my rescue. We figured out how damp the paint brush needed to be, etc. My biggest issue was getting all the glaze to run in the same direction. When we added the trim piece, it made it difficult to use long strokes. I could get the outside edges looking right and the middle of the center section but when it got close to the trim, it looked smudged. It nearly drove me nuts. I could NOT live with cabinets that looked like that. We finally figured out that we needed to use a wet brush (not dry) and damp rag to even things out. Eric went back to his plumbing project and here is what I did:

Using a foam brush, I started applying the glaze on the inside edges first (although it's probably not necessary, I usually develop a system when I paint so everything is applied in the same order - it may or may not make a difference but it's easier for me to remember what I'm doing).

Then I worked towards the center:

Then my outside edges until the entire face was covered:

Then, using a damp rag, I wipe the whole thing off very quickly being sure to rub my rag in the direction I want the glaze to follow:

Yes. My arm was going that fast.

Just keep wiping...

Getting closer:

 And closer:

After rubbing off some of the excess glaze, I used a wet paint brush to swish it back and forth so I could get my brush strokes to be even between the trim.

This was one of my first doors. It looked okay, but wasn't exactly what I had envisioned. 

After I glazed all the doors, I realized that some of them were darker than others and that I really preferred the darker look. I took the door I liked best, set it on my worktable and re-glazed all of the other doors until they matched. It was much easier to "darken" the glaze by this point because I had a lot more experience and I had a good idea of what I needed to do.

This is what I ended up with:



My drawer fronts:



Next, I had to glaze the cabinet boxes. That was a whole 'nother level of tricky. At least doors are fairly small and manageable. I did the boxes in about four foot sections because I couldn't reach much further without moving my ladder and once again, I had to work quickly. The bead-board proved problematic as the glaze either puddled or wouldn't go into the grooves. Gah. 

Don't ever ask me to glaze your cabinets. There is a reason why painters charge an arm and a leg.

Yeah. Don't paint your walls before your cabinets. I'm really glad I didn't.

The helpful guy at Sherwin Williams told me that a latex clear-coat (following the glaze) was optional although it would probably improve durability. With small children, I opted for the extra durability.

I chose a Minwax spray clear-coat over what Sherwin Williams offered (they only carry brush-on) because I was tired of brushing. Shh! Don't tell SW! 

I forgot that spray cans make blisters on your fingertips.

Our kitchen took about four cans.

When we took the doors off to clean them, I chunked all the old, greasy hinges. I found the same hinges in powder black on eBay and bought new ones for all the doors. Hint: eBay has AWESOME prices for door hardware. The hinges were a perfect fit and cost less than half of our local Lowe's identical product.

The kitchen is far from finished - as you can tell, we haven't painted yet! I'm really pleased with the way the cabinets turned out. They'll look a lot nicer when we decide on a paint color (we have several samples painted on the walls!), install the countertops and black appliances.

Enjoy!

What do you think? I'd love some feedback!

Cabinets! Week Four

Finally.

I can talk about my cabinets!

Remember these lovely ladies?

The cabinets were awful. Beyond disgusting and visually...um...disturbing. If you know anything about me, you know this was unacceptable. I'm a firm believer in being surrounded by things that are pleasant to look at. Please note that I did not say expensive things. Oh no. I'm all about cheap.

Eric and I spent a lot of time discussing what would give us the biggest bang for our buck in the kitchen. We know that the kitchen is considered the heart of the home and that like it or not, I would be spending a lot of time there. 

We realized pretty quickly that boxing in the top of the cabinets would draw the eye upward and make them look a bit more high-end. After perusing Houzz and Pinterest for several weeks, we chose a bead board panelling. It's about $20 for a 4'x8' sheet so it didn't take much money and I think it made a significant difference.

Due to the fact that I will be losing a significant amount of counter space from what I'm used to, Eric and I decided that we would go with an over-the-range microwave when we purchase appliances (when we can afford them). Eric bumped up the cabinet over the range to make room. He also bumped up the cabinet over the refrigerator because more than likely, we will have a larger fridge than the previous owners.

Here you can see how Eric began the process:





Boxing complete! Ready for primer.

We had taken all the doors off the cabinets by this point and after cleaning them with Krud Kutter (more on that later), I stacked them in the pantry until it was "my" turn again.

In addition to the bead board, we knew we had to do something to the dated cabinet faces. Plain grooves may have made the cut, but the little fancy mitered corner really screamed "1970!". Which is strange to me, because this house was built in 1995. People make odd decisions sometimes.

We made the requisite trip to Lowe's where we spent waaayyy too much time on the trim aisle. At least they had a shelf low enough to keep Ethan occupied. Apologies to the stock-person that manages this moulding. Ethan disagreed with your organization plan.

This one? That one? Is there enough?

Isn't our baby girl growing up?

We picked out a piece of trim I really liked but Lowe's didn't have enough in stock. I didn't love it enough to drive to another Lowe's so we went with a 1" fluted profile. Now I think I prefer it.


Close up:





It wasn't quite wide enough to cover up the groovy miter, so we had to fill it in a bit with sandable/paintable wood filler.

Eric sands the filler on the corners:




Ethan found a new favorite toy:

He played with Eric's cordless drill all.day.long. Yes. He was filthy when we got home.

He did scare us a few times:

After Eric got all the trim put on the faces, it was my turn. I sanded. And sanded. It took a long time to sand all those doors. Oh, how I hate sanding! But it had to be done. 

Originally, I had looked into Rust-o-leum's Cabinet Transformation series, but when I realized that I would need two kits ($250) on top of the fact that I had a very small selection of colors, I decided to talk to one of the salesmen at Sherwin Williams.

The salesman suggested all the steps I will go over here.

1) Clean the cabinets with Krud Kutter. At $20 per gallon, the stuff wasn't cheap, but it that or $8 per quart so I went with the gallon (Hindsight: a quart would have been plenty.) 

2) Prime with oil-based Pro-Block. Eric and I picked out 6003 "Proper Gray" for the main color so I asked SW to tint the primer the same color. 

I brushed the paint around the edges and over the trim, then used a fine roller to roll the centers and backs.

Here you can see my primed doors laid out to dry: 

I told the bebes to stay out off the room, but well, you know. 

Thankfully, a quick roll over with primer (again) and it was fixed.

Next, Eric filled in all his nail holes and corners with wood filler.

Meanwhile, I painted the cabinet boxes and boxing. Word to the wise, if you're going to use pre-finished panelling, be prepared to paint very fast. I was not prepared and Eric had to stop what he was doing (eek! I hate doing that to him!) and help me. The primer was sticking to itself and not to the bead board. 

I need to cook supper. More later!

Week Three

This week won't take as long to blog because each project took a ginormous hunk of time and one picture pretty much looks like the next. 

For what it's worth, I'm blogging Week Three but I just finished Week(end) Seven today. I had planned to blog after each weekend, but life is busy and after teaching all week, plus the 18-20 hours logged at the house on the weekends, I'm usually asleep during the time I had planned to write. I'm trying to catch up.

I decided the cabinets were beyond disgusting. They had to be cleaned before another day passed. More bleach. More masks. More rubber gloves. Seriously, I hope whomever invented rubber gloves is canonized. And I'm not even Catholic.

I vacuumed them out first. The folks before us thought that roach poison would take care of the pest problem because surely the spilled food and seasonings had no bearing at all. Gah. In one cabinet, there was enough seasoning for a cow - I mean a WHOLE cow - along with smears of some sort of roach-killing paste. I had to use a putty knife to scrape it out. ::barf::

In case you've forgotten their loveliness:

Just a wee bit dated, dontcha' think?

Let's eat!

Eric removed my baby-blue countertops. ::sob:: Not.

First I wiped them all down (inside and out) with bleach-water. I know that bleach is not the best thing for cleaning and that it kills unnecessary good bacteria and stuff...but I couldn't bring myself to use anything "green" or "natural." I considered none of the crud to be natural even if it would be technically considered "organic." It is not natural to live with that type of crap in your cabinets. I try, I really do, under normal circumstances, to use better products. 

Even after I had cleaned the outsides, I didn't realize how much crap was UNDER the hinges. After I painted, I removed the doors (hindsight! should have done that first! duh!) and had to wipe down the outsides again.

I used black, oil based enamel paint to coat the insides. This was not fun. I looked like a toddler caught playing with shoe polish. It also involved some interesting gymnastics when I had to reach the far back corners. 

Enamel dries harder than normal paint and should be easy to clean when I get to the point where I'll actually store things in these beauties.

Ethan couldn't take all the physical labor. He had to nap.

Despite what you may be thinking, Eric was NOT loafing off during this time. Oh no. He removed the wall that used to be the back of the shower in the Master Bath (to make room for our hot water heater niche), and began the arduous task of patching sheetrock. Although Eric is quite skilled with mud and knife, he's not a fan. I can't blame him. Sheetrock mud does a number to one's skin. It's not fun.

Kilz made a huge difference on the walls, but now the imperfections were REALLY obvious. Eric went through the house circling areas that needed patches with a pencil. 

See? Just a few places:

Not. Those are just two of the walls. I'd say at least 60% of the rest looked about the same.

Ethan did enjoy sheetrock mud. "I workin' hard!" was his oft-repeated quote of the day. He would then grab a handful (or paint stick full) of sheetrock mud and smear it somewhere. He also thought that Eric using a pencil on the walls made it okay for HIM to use a pencil on the walls. Nipped that one in the bud.

Eric ended up going by the house on his way home from work several evenings so he could mud the sheetrock. By Week Four, we will be ready to sand!