It DID get Done!

I haven't written on my blog for quite sometime as you can see. But I did get the kitchen cabinets finished AND I painted my counter tops to look like black granite. (I must say they turned out quite well and are holding up much better than I'd expected!)

Here's a few pictures of the completed project.

Cabinets and counter tops done!

You can see I got the black and white checker floor down also.

Almost finished kitchen. 

Finally Making some Headway!

As of March 25th, 2011

I've been neglecting updating the blog here, but I am making progress! Albeit, slow, progress none the less. I find it easiest at this time to tell the tale in pictures, so here goes...
These photos date from about March 5th through the 25th. I've gotten more done in the last few days (today is actually the 29th) I'll post more pictures soon.

Cabinet doors removed, frames sanded,

Primed and ready for paint

Under cabinet lighting added

Cabinets primed - Large cabinet in center beadboard wallpaper inside. (Planning to put glass in these doors!)

 Took a break from doors and took apart old gold fan and painted it in metalic silver paint to match door knobs.

My work station in the garage for putting trim on doors. (Love the barrowed saw! I want one!)

Boards measured and ready to apply trim.

Cutting the trim pieces - one at a time!

Measuring trim for EACH door!

Hard As Nails glue applied to each piece of trim..

...and a pin nailer to hold the pieces in place.

Doors sanded, trimmed and re-sanded all edges to make trim flush.

Glass in two middle doors and painted, other doors going up!

First Post

 I will start by stating that I have never done a blog before and hope that there is some hints and helps here for anyone looking to do some of the same kind of work I'm doing.

Some background:

 My husband and I bought our old 1897 built home in 1998. It was 101 years old and in very good condition for a home of that age. Originally built as a school house in 1897, it was not the typical one-room school house you would normally expect for that time period, and changed into a residence in 1917 when the school was replaced by a larger structure. 

Because this home was originally built as a schoolhouse, it has an exceptionally wide staircase (4 ft. wide) and is very well built. It is two stories, each story boasts 11 foot ceilings, however, there is not a lot of the ornate workmanship one would expect in a home of this age, mostly, I think, because it was a school. The walls are lathe and plaster with a rough finish from floor to ceiling.

Perhaps later I'll add in here all the wonderfully fun things we've already done to this house. But for now, it's working on the kitchen...

February 2011

Current Project:

Renovating/rejuvenating my old kitchen.  

 This kitchen was 'updated and remodeled' in the 1980's. It has the glorious formica laminate covered cabinet doors with the oak trim that doubles as handle pulls. I have hated these cabinets since the day we bought the house, but they were in very good condition, clean and very serviceable. So, I have lived with them for the past 14 years. (I know, ugh!)

So, now it's time to do some work in the kitchen. Now, if I had the money (and you'll find this a common thread throughout most of my projects) I'd love to hire someone to come in and completely gut this kitchen and start over. Oh what I could do with this kitchen given an unlimited budget... period stove and sink with fabulous cabinetry ~ I can see it now... 

Ah well, seeing as I DON'T have an unlimited budget I guess it's back to reality... how boring, huh?  Boring or not, here we go...

Here are the cabinets 'before' - the camera's panorama setting makes it look rounded, it is not! It's an illusion from the camera.

 There are a LOT of cabinets in this kitchen with absolutely no wall space, what isn't showing is cabinets to the photographer's back.

(You can always tell when I use the panorama camera)

 The photo below are the same cabinets seen above. 

 

This is looking at the ends of the cabinets that are a thin melamine covering over MDF. I began stripping the base by heating and scraping the thin contact-like paper off. It took forever! It took me TWO days to finish that one base cabinet end and there was a lot more to do at the ends of each set of cabinets. I figured there had to be an easier way. After much research I discovered there is. The choices I came up with were to either cover it with paint, beadboard wallpaper, or beadboard paneling. I'm still not sure which I've decided. In the meantime, there is plenty of other work to be done while I research pricing on my above options.

 First thing I had to do was wash the cabinets, frames and boxes to remove all grease, dust and grime. I used TSP which worked wonderfully! Then I removed the doors, hardware and knobs. (The knobs I'd added a few years ago because I was tired of the oak "pulls" tearing off fingernails if you didn't grab them just right! Ouchie!)

February 20th

With the doors off, here is the same bank of cabinets with the light sanding done. So far this is all I've gotten accomplished. Perhaps tonight I can put on a coat of primer. I've bought BIN primer by Zinnser. It wasn't cheap but is supposed to be one of the best for this application.

February 21st
I didn't get the primer on last night, so I have nothing to report there. However, I decided to give beadboard wallpaper a try on the cabinet ends.
I stopped at Menards on my way home from work tonight and grabbed a roll for 12.99 and also picked up the wood I'll need to make all the drawer fronts. I roughly guessed one roll of the wallpaper should cover all the cabinet ends.  It's a double roll, made by Brewster that is 20 inches wide and 11 yards long. I'm going to begin putting it up tonight after dinner. (I'm SO excited!) I'll get some pictures of the first application later this evening.

Okay, here's the first pictures of the first pieces of wallpaper up:

Not sure what the white blotch at the top left of picture is - must be the flash.

Inside panel under hood.

Wallpaper on end of cabinet. (The paper in the cabinet is to keep dust out of cabinet.)

February 25th
Here's the deal... been working all week and too tired to do much of anything on the cabinets in the evenings.  However, yesterday my husband noticed a leak from under the dishwasher - arg. He pulled the dishwasher out to find the floor underneath sopping wet. He completely removed the dishwasher, and after much trying to dry the floor with little success, we realized we were going to have to pull the tiles up to let the floor under the tiles dry. We got the tiles up, tore up a layer of the plywood underlayment that had separated and buckled to find clean, mostly dry wood under that. We finished drying it and fortunately it laid flat and will be easy to repair. (Glad we found it when we did! It could have caused a lot of damage!)

March 2nd

I have been delayed because the weather has been so cold I haven't been able to open the windows to paint. I was worried about putting the primer on the cabinets. Everyone mentions having adequate ventilation, the label on the BIN primer says to have good ventilation when applying the primer... so finally, the weather is warm enough to open the windows and get some primer on the cabinet boxes. I was amazed. This stuff hardly smells at all! I have definitely smelled worse! I have one open window, closed off the kitchen from the rest of the house and the overhead fan on to circulate the air... and I can barely smell anything! I'm so relieved, I'm ready to tackle the rest of the cabinets!! Whoop!