Onward, Kitchen Soldiers

Well, we've decided on painting the cabinets. The prep will likely be as time-intensive as it would be with staining, but I'm much more confident in my ability to produce a nice-looking finish with paint.

After a little bit of thought, we're also planning on replacing the countertop, putting up a subway tile backsplash, and adding undercabinet lighting while we've got everything dismantled.

A couple of photos for inspiration. The first is from a UK kitchen designer, and the second was posted on the GardenWeb Home Decorating forum.

About the kitchen cupboards...

We've finally gotten around to doing something about our kitchen cabinets. They're flush panel pine, and I imagine that they're the ones that came with the house in 1952. After fifty years, they're not in the greatest of shape.



The finish has become quite brassy over the yellow pine, but I suppose it could be worse - they could be knotty pine.


We'd like to remove this piece, but need to figure out how to do it without damaging the existing cabinets too much.



I once saw an episode of "Designed to Sell" in which the illustrious Lisa LaPorta used Howard Restor-A-Finish to refresh some kitchen cabinets. Since Craig and I harbor a soft spot for HGTV's Design Bulldog, we decided to give it a try.

Before:


After: A TSP scrubbing and the Restor-A-Finish definitely cleaned up the finish, but didn't go far enough. The most amazing thing is the feel of the wood after using the Restor-A-Finish - it's silky smooth. Fear not, though, fans of LaPorta. The Restor-A-Finish will be put to good use on our doors and woodwork. But not until summer when we can open the windows - that's some stinky stuff.


We're left with two options to make the cabinets look nice. New hardware is a given. I waffle on this every day. In an effort to get it out on virtual paper, here are the options.

Strip, Sand, Stain, & Polyurethane
Pros
1. Craig likes the look of wood.
2. A medium tone would look nice with the beige appliances.
3. I can practice my staining skills with my mom, who has graciously agreed to come up for a weekend in March and help with the project.
Cons
1. This is a lot of work.
2. In light of #1, these are not particularly nice cabinets. If we had the cash, we'd happily rip them out and start anew.
3. I don't really like pine - the yellow tones look brassy to me, even when they haven't seen fifty years of use.
4. There's a veneer, and I'm a little scared of having the veneer buckle while stripping.

Paint
Pros
1. The workload is considerably less than with stripping, sanding, and refinishing.
2. Painting would allow us to sand down the cupboards, fill old nail holes with spackle or skim coat, and have a nice, clean result. Because of this, could use cabinet knobs without having a noticable hole from the existing hardware.
Cons
1. Craig likes the look of wood better.
2. I might have trouble finding a paint color that would match the appliances.
3. We'd need to touch up more often than with a wood finish.

Have I mentioned that I'm an obsessive planner? And self-doubter? Yes? Carry on, then.

Crap. It's February already.

Well, I am officially an adult. I asked for doormats and lighting fixtures for Christmas, and was very excited to receive them. And then work got busy during January, so I was way too tired to think about anything other than USDA grant regulations and whether or not Scrubs was going to be on that night. I think the combination of being excited over doormats and caring about indirect cost rates has sounded the death knell to any claim I had at being a fun-loving twentysomething.

Anyway, by popular demand (read: Diana's demand), here's what we've been doing:

First off, we again demonstrated our ability to follow directions and use hand tools by fixing the leaky kitchen faucet, which had been dripping steadily through December. (I almost cried when I opened the water bill, and discovered that it would not force us to go into debt, as I'd feared.)


The faucet is now working well, with only one problem - we apparently put the facuet cartridge in backwards, so hot and cold are reversed. But that's a pretty fast learning curve.

We also painted the kitchen. I've decided I like painting - it's relatively cheap, can be done in a day or so, and produces immediate results. The color is "Raspberry Truffle" from Benjamin Moore.

A couple of before pictures:




That's a dropcloth, not my decor scheme.

The rather disturbing layer of dark gray primer we used:



And after:




I was amazed that it only took two coats of primer and two coats of red to get a good result. All the horror stories I've heard from friends who wanted a Trading Spaces-style red dining room are apparently just a good argument for buying good quality paint.

Finally, we replaced our 1970's Pizza Hut hallway light with this number from Rejuvenation (Merry Christmas!).


File under "Things that cost more to ship than you can sell them for on eBay."


Craig discovers that the previous owners/builders thought it would be a good idea to wire other rooms through the hallway light.


The finished product. But now it makes everything in our little hallway look cheap. And such is the curse of home improvement, sayeth Craig and Ellen.