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!