Monday, July 17, 2017

THE BEGINNING OF THE KITCHEN CABINET PROJECT!

Good morning!

Well, I decided to put up a quick post this morning and let you in on the MASSIVE project we've taken on now....the kitchen cabinets! Let me start by saying that neither one of us were under ANY illusions, as we have done this project in the past at our old house.  The difference then was though that I was young and spry enough that I did a great deal of that job myself.  Badly....but still. lol  We did not know what on earth we were doing years and years ago when we did the job, and there was no such thing as the internet or goggle of course, or tutorials or anything like it, and we simply lightly sanded the most AWFUL looking cabinets you ever saw and painted them a beautiful shade of blue. I have no idea what kind of paint we used,  and it never occurred to us to remove the doors or the hinges. I am pretty sure we never even cleaned them first either, at least in any detail. And so of course it wasn't long and they began to chip and wear and those painted cabinets were my worse nightmare until we FINALLY had brand new custom cabinets built years later.  I swore at the time I would NEVER EVER again paint kitchen cabinets and put up with chipping and wear and tare.  And yet....here we are.  Of course we considered just replacing these cabinets altogether.  No doubt for the "look" I want, this would have been the best move.  But there is NO WAY we wanted to spend the kind of money that it would take to do so. So then the next option seemed to be to paint them.  Well our first move was to call a few painters and get some quotes and have it done PROFESSIONALLY this time and hopefully therefore avoid all the chipping etc., with a job done right.  However, the quotes were coming in between 2500 and 3000 dollars, and even more!  Really?!!  That just seemed ridiculous.  We considered then maybe just spending a few thousand more and replacing them altogether.  After we again discarded this notion, we decided OK, we will research HOW it should be done, and do it ourselves. Who cares how long it takes (working on the week-ends only as I can't do it on my own anymore!)?Who cares if they are not modern and up to date and looking totally new, as ALMOST ANYTHING would look better then we had. HOW hard can it be to do it, right?  Soooo then I began trying to figure what color to paint them and how to best go about it to get the best results possible.  I don't know how many tutorials I watched, or how much research on paints and tools I looked into, but lets just say A LOT!  Sooo having said all of that, our first step was to thoroughly clean all of the cabinets and doors.  So we bought a special cleaner product and set to work.  OH MY GOODNESS!  I guess I am going to expose myself here as a bad housekeeper, but I had NO IDEA just how dirty those cupboards really were!  It was awful!  It required hours of scrubbing and cleaning and honestly they looked completely different when we were done.  Now let me say this....this home was over 30 years old when we bought it 7 years ago, and I am sure these are the original cabinets. And they were fairly cheap to begin with as well, so combined now with old that gives you a better idea. I don't clean things the way I have in the past as thoroughly cleaning down the kitchen cabinets inside and out used to be one of my spring projects.  Then I'd give them a good oiling.  Well I am not sure if I have even done it once since we moved in here.  Lightly wiped down yes....thoroughly cleaned...no. And trust me could you ever tell.  In doing this we discovered as well that there were some spots where the wood itself was somewhat "chewed" and ragged and so course then those had to be somewhat repaired.  It wasn't but a few spots or honestly we might have just thrown in the towel at that point and forced ourselves to buy the new.  We used wood filler and more sanding and had them looking much much better.  Totally new looking? Ah noo, but way better.  We pressed on.  Hours behind our imagined "schedule" but with totally clean cabinets.  Our next step was to remove all the handles and hinges and doors.  Now we had already decided to keep and use these all again as again we were blown away with the cost of having to replace them all.  And I really kind of liked the handles anyway.  Well, the style of them that is.  Soo we began with soaking them in a cleaner, and then a couple of hours later I scrubbed and cleaned them with a brush and thoroughly dried them. They too were unbelievably just flat out super dirty.  It was amazing how well they came out.  But then I decided to spray paint them all an antique gold.  Only took 3 coats!  I left them drying in the hot sun.  They look fantastic!  Hubby was busy sanding everything and making the necessary repairs while I worked on the handles.  When he finished with that he put painters tape all around and got an area ready to paint the doors.  He rolled up our family room area rug, covered our freshly done floor with a huge plastic drop cloth, and set up the upper cabinet doors (nine in all) on plastic cups.  We had been at this project for over 7 hours and we were FINALLY ready to paint.  We decided though to wait till the morning time as we felt we wouldn't see well enough, plus we were both bushed. Soo a full day's work went just into "prep".  Not exactly what we thought, but we were still feeling good about it all.  We had bought the top of the line enamel paint at Home Depot and S L O W L Y and lightly began applying it to the doors early the next morning.  We moved at a crawl pace (I only painted two of them before my back told me to stop!) so then of course it went even slower.  I will say we were both thrilled with how well this paint was working out though. It was easily the best paint we'd ever bought, and you could really tell when applying it. But as they sat drying and hubby headed out into the kitchen to begin painting the upper portions of the cabinets, (I was sitting by now, lol) we noticed that they were definitely going to need two coats! We were both a little disappointed with that, but it was what it was.  After lunch we applied the second coat to one side of the doors, and to the cabinet area in the kitchen that he had done.  At this point it was around 3 and hubby was tired and we still had to grocery shop and have dinner etc., so we quit again.  Sooo here we are.  This morning hubby got up at 5 and flipped all the doors to the other side and gave them their first coat before he jumped in the shower and left for work.  I am sure he was glad to get to work to rest up from his grueling week-end, lol.  He will give those doors their second coat when he gets home tonight. We haven't quite figured out if he is going to be able to re-install the doors without some help (besides me of course as I am pretty pointless), but we will cross that bridge when we get to it.  Might have to call in one of our sons for that.  Meanwhile....we still have ALL of the lower cabinets and doors to go...  But at least they have all been cleaned, sanded, repaired, taped off, and had their handles removed, so all that remains is to remove the hinges (and paint those then of course) put them on the cups and begin painting.  Should hopefully finish up this HUGE project next week-end.  That is of course unless we have a problem getting them back on and have to wait for assistance, lol.  So far we both LOVE LOVE the way it is coming out, and it does seem to be worth it.  It will change the look of the entire kitchen.  Next will be replacing the counters, but let's get this done first right?  lol  I will show you the pics I did get now, but they are not very good...just so you know, lol

ALL OF THE BLINDS WERE OPEN SO THAT THE SUNLIGHT COULD SHINE THROUGH, BUT IT DIDN'T HELP WITH THE GLARE THAT PRODUCED TO SEE HERE VERY WELL.  BUT YOU KIND OF GET THE IDEA.

THIS IS A CLOSE UP LOOK AT ONE OF THE CLEANED AREAS...NOT SURE WHY I TOOK IT AT THIS ANGLE, BUT THERE IT IS

NOW HERE IS A CLOSE UP LOOK AT THE HANDLES.  THE ONE ON THE LEFT IS LAYING ON A WHITE PIECE OF PAPER WHICH WAS WHAT I WAS USING TO LAY DOWN TO SPRAY PAINT THEM, AND THE ONE ON THE RIGHT IS THE BEFORE.  I REALLY DO LIKE THE ANTIQUE WAY THEY CAME OUT.  MOST OF MY HOUSE IS DONE IN SOMEWHAT OF A VINTAGE VICTORIAN LOOK, AND I THINK THESE GO RIGHT ALONG WITH IT

HERE ARE THE DOORS READY FOR PAINT!

ALL PAINTED

I TRIED TO TAKE A CLOSE UP OF ONE OF THEM, BUT IT'S NOT REAL CLEAR.  THERE IS TWO SKY LIGHTS ABOVE OUR FAMILY ROOM WHICH IS NICE AGAIN TO SEE, BUT DOES PRODUCE A GLARE WHEN TAKING PICTURES.  


WE DID STICK PAPER IN THE CUPBOARDS TO COVER THE DISHES, AS I JUST DON'T HAVE ANYWHERE TO PUT EVERYTHING SHOULD I HAVE EMPTIED THEM OUT.  I AM GOING TO MAKE NEW CURTAINS AND PAINT ALL THE WALLS IN THE HOUSE EVENTUALLY TOO, BUT AGAIN, GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF.  ;LOL

SOO that's it for now.  I am very pleased with everything so far and I guess IF we pull it off a couple of week-ends of work is not too terribly bad.  Oh?  And cost so far with paints and cleaners etc?  About 150 dollars.  Way more what we felt like spending, lol. Though we are going to need more paint.  But even so, that only makes it around a couple hundred.  Pretty economical I think.  I've lots of things I have to do this week, so I will continue to be busy.  Hope you all have a good week!  Blessings to you all, Debbie

8 comments:

  1. What a fantastic job y'all did! I love it and I'm sure you do too! Doesn't it feel good to save so much $$ and have it turn out so well! Congratulations! A real success story if I ever heard one!

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  2. Thank you for all the details, Debbie. I am impressed I can tell you that. I last painted my kitchen cabinets 23 years ago. Ahem. Anyway, I did replace the hardware, but other than that, I didn't even take the doors off. Lazy gal here, I guess. They look fabulous. You are going to have a brand new kitchen for sweat equity.

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  3. Oh, my, what a laboriously task but it is definitely going to transform your kitchen. So glad you are letting us share in the project. Good job!

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  4. What a big project but it looks wonderful. I did it when I was younger too. It was still a huge job then. I stare at mine and wish I was doing them too.
    Its going to be so nice. Thanks for sharing. I think it looks so great.

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  5. I am in love with them already! You will love the lighter, brighter look, I'll bet! You two are on fire these days! Lol!

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  6. They look amazing! And I agree with the antique gold handles. Great job! Can't wait to see the finished product.

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  7. Absolutely amazing Debbie, I am so looking forward to seeing the end results, You amaze me! I know yo are really going to enjoy the new look, I have tried to get the nerve to do something with mine, but haven't! You all really saved some money by doing it yourself! Have a blessed weekend,
    Hugs,
    Sue

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I am so glad that you would take the time to comment on my thoughts and feelings, it is such a blessing to me!