cabinet makeover part two: reality.

I have read probably hundreds of stories about kitchen cabinet renovations. Blogs and articles and how-to's, scouring for the perfect way. I wanted to do it right, but also, was scared of such a huge undertaking. And seriously? I don't have a huge-0 garage laden with power tools! Our garage is one of those tent-like gray monstrosities, with ripped flaps for doors, with our lawn mower, bicycles, and old lawn chairs in it. And the pictures in the articles, the houses with the gorgeous counters, with spotlessly clean cabinets, all cleared out for the work...ha. We are in knee deep right now. Chaos-city here. The living room is overflowing with stuff that was in our way.

So I read that you can hammer four tacks into the back of the cabinet door after painting it, then rest it on the tacks while you paint the front. That didn't work for us, even after we gathered up so many tacks. Evelyn didn't actually use the hammer though, she said it didn't work, and she "tried with the scissors." Yes, that is our reality, why run and find a hammer when you can pound with scissors?

Our solution was better though, and to be fair, I did steal it from one of the articles I read...we propped the doors up on canned food covered in clean hand towels. We then realized that boxes of cereal and crackers also worked well.

The paint we used went easily and dried quickly. We did two coats, and think it might be enough. The cupboard doors had lots of issues, and we used wood filler and sanded it off. There are areas where it wasn't sanded off enough, and there are drawers where you can see where the old screw holes were. We're hoping the new hardware will cover those.

The reality of this project is that it is long and tedious. Even with a really good work crew, it takes forever.

And it's not done yet. We have cabinet doors and drawers all over the place. It takes a while for them to cure, and one thing I didn't realize was that we shouldn't have done the second coat so soon after the first coat, oops. Even if it feels dry to the touch it needs to cure more. And, we should have used the semi-gloss. So learn from us.

And I don't like using expensive paint, but after all this work, I wanted to choose something that would hold up.

I do not get paid to endorse products, but so far have been happy with the primer:

Zinser 1-2-3 water based.

And the paint:

Sherwin Williams Emerald in satin, color - Alabaster.

I also paid an un-Godly amount of money for one of the paint brushes, a Purdy, and it was SO NICE compared to the Walmart brushes.

Here's something I learned from the process: patience is not only a virtue, it's a necessity. I am the queen of thinking I am the most careful, but my girls were coming behind me and finding drips. I checked a drawer this morning that I had painted yesterday, and dried drips, oops. I also learned that having the four girls here helping was worth golden treasures. We had more fun than humans beings should have doing tedious work, and they also warmed my heart with their thoughtfulness. I didn't want to break for brekky yesterday when only Sonja was helping, so she made me Ezekial toast and some pepperoni. They kept working when I thought they must be sick and tired of it, fixing things and giving touch-ups and cleaning up spilled drips. Kathryn cleaned all the brushes and paint bowls, voluntarily. Suze and Evelyn just kept on like Energizer bunnies, until we were certain it was done.

Now the doors need to go back on, so off we go to get spray paint for the hinges. Don't be like us, get it ahead of time. These hinges could have/should have been painted already, but we live and learn.

But we didn't decide for sure what color to get until we got to the paint store yesterday, so what do we know? Sonja K. was the best helper there though...she didn't roll her eyes and focus on her iPod, she actually helped make a good decision. Who knew there are like fifty shades of white?