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!

Work, work and more work - The Second Weekend

The Second Weekend

The next two workdays made a much bigger dent in the appearance of our nasty little home. I continued to clean and tried to take down the doors that were no longer usable. In reality, this means I removed the hinge-pins and stacked the doors near the trash trailer. Eric had to remove the actual frames because I could not figure out how to disassemble them. I could bust them and create huge cracks but getting them to part ways with the wall eluded me. I did manage to knock myself in the head with a crow-bar. One talented chica, I tell ya.

Eric removed most of the light fixtures (its not like they worked anyway), and mini-fans. What is the deal with 24" fans?!? They looks so...stunted. They belong in a center for ants.

We removed the shower in the Master Bath by cutting it into chunks and carting it away. Yes, it would have been nice to have the separate shower but I'm all for getting rid of things that require cleaning. We will use the freed-up space to relocate the hot water heater from it's current location in the laundry room. Eric will add a wall in the bathroom to create a HWH niche from the Laundry Room side but I'll talk about that in another post. 

**Correction: this is where the NEW hot water heater will go.** The old heater was tossed. The bottom was nearly rusted through and the seam down the back had split. It was a disaster waiting to happen. So glad we removed it before it busted!

Meanwhile, my generous father offered us an air tub that he had removed from his ReBath showroom and no longer needed. While he was in the tub-busting mood, Eric went ahead and removed the giant soaker tub in the Master Bath too. I'm so glad. Bathing in a former display tub may feel weird at first, but I'm sure I'll feel much cleaner. 

Getting ready to go ninja on the tub:

With the hall bath in a semi-functioning state, Eric removed the Master Bath toilet. OMG. So nasty. Blessings on the person that invented rubber gloves.

Eric was a real trooper - in addition to ALL OF THAT, he removed all the vanities and the underlayment where new flooring will be installed (everywhere).

Goodbye to some serious ugly:

Did I mention that Facebook came through for me again? I'm a member of a couple local "yardsale" groups. Sometime during the week before, I found a vanity that could easily be cut down to the size we need for the Master Bath. I was looking forward to two sinks, but one will have to do. Buying used saved us about 80% over a new vanity and top even thought I'll have to paint the cabinet part. I've got more time than money.

That was Friday.

On Saturday, we broke open twenty gallons of Kilz. 

A few years back, Eric and I painted a house right before it went on the market. We "invested" in a professional paint sprayer to save time. Did I mention it's a time-saver? Like kilzed-the-whole-house-in-eight-hours type of time-saver? Once again, it was determined to be a good investment. Eric may have looked a bit funny in his "face-sock" but by golly, he got it done. All of the ceilings, walls, and floors received a coat of Kilz. I'll take the smell of noxious paint fumes over noxious dog-pee anyday. 

Oops! We missed a fan!

Master Bedroom Ceiling - so much better!

Master Bath (as seen from bedroom)

Kitchen:

Laundry Room: 

Master Bedroom - see my cheapo vanity!

The "clean" room and electronic babysitter:

The Hallway leading to bedroom and schoolroom:

From the Living Room - looking toward the Dining Area and Hall:

From the Living Room - looking towards a hot hunk...oops! I mean the hallway:

Alas, the sprayer doesn't work for the floors.

From the Living Room - looking toward Master Bedroom and Laundry.

The dirt may still be there, but now it's stuck. And white. And smells a lot better.

The Fun Part

Now the fun begins!

We've owned the house just a little over a month and have had a total of 10 actual workdays (five weekends working Friday/Saturday). To say the job is overwhelming is well, an understatement. We should buy stock in hand-sanitizer and there are lots of thinks that I just try not to think about...like Ethan's habit of sucking his fingers. I will not let myself go there.

Weekend #1:

We had grand plans for this first weekend of work. We would drop the bebes off at a friend's house early so I could "sanitize" a room where they could camp until we had the house to a point where they could run around and play. I would pick the bebes up at noon, take them to swim lessons, bring them back to the new house for lunch, let them watch movies in our "clean" room until mid-afternoon when my parents had offered to pick them up.

Yeah. Well you know. Grand plans usually don't work. I got to exercise my duties as a parent and deal with some pretty big attitudes for several hours first thing that morning. This ended up meaning that ERIC sanitized the room, set up the DVD player and camp chairs while I trekked back and forth across town taking care of the problems. It was fun. 

Once I finally got to the work part, I got to mop. And mop. And mop. I mopped every wall in that 1,400 sq ft. house with a strong mixture of bleach and water. This meant rubber gloves, a face mask, and usually a hat to protect my hair from the falling dust bunnies in 90 degree weather. I am a wimp.

I'm not sure how technically necessary mopping was to the work that needed to be done, but it did make me feel better about my children being on the premises. Of course, it also helped me spot all the dried boogers on the walls and I discovered that bleach does indeed dissolve them if applied liberally. Needless to say, I didn't want to touch anything when we left. I would have probably boiled myself to get clean if I didn't think it would kill me.

While I mopped (cause you all know that I'm the main worker, here, right?), Eric was busy removing all the carpet in the Master Bedroom, the laminate wood flooring in the Living Room, and the vinyl bits that were scattered around the various rooms. It was so gross. The smell of pee did diminish a great deal when that carpet made it onto the trash trailer.

After the mopping was done, I bleached the bathroom...I'm not going to tell you about that other than the fact that regardless of whether or not the toilet was salvageable, I cannot live with it in my house. It will be replaced.

This is the front door after I'd bleached it three times:

Just in case you forgot what it looked like originally:

Nope. It's not staying either. 

Surprisingly, the bathtubs in this house are (were) in really good shape. After cleaning for a solid weekend and not seeing much improvement and growing more aghast at the filth by the moment, I told Eric that I didn't think I could handle bathing in one of the existing bathrooms psychologically. I would never feel clean.

This was the weekend we also met most of our new neighbors. It was nice to be welcomed to a place where you don't know anyone...only it turns out we did. Our new next-door neighbor is someone I had grown up around and actually thought I was cousins with until I was about eighteen (I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, k?). That was cool. 

That was pretty much all we did the first weekend, but here are a few more pictures of the inside before I move on to the next weekend.

Hall Bath:

Notice the visible signs of anger? What you can't see is that behind the door (where it had been slammed repeatedly into the wall) is a large hole in the drywall that backs up to a hole in the bedroom (what will be our school room) wall also created by the slamming of the door into the drywall. Before using the restroom, one always had to make sure everyone knew not to peak.

Front Porch:

The Back Elevation:

This is Ethan chilling in our "clean" room. The walls are still pretty nasty, but they've been bleached, we put down cardboard flooring and it's complete with a dvd player and camp chairs. 

 Yours Truly. Lovely, eh?