An Underwhelming Reveal
I have been MIA lately but it is not because I have been at the pool.....really. I have been so busy with projects that I have not had time to blog about them. I have one more full week of vacation before going back to work so I am trying to cram as much in as possible. So hopefully after I am back on the schedule of working that I will have more structure in order to get posts done and also tons of things to post about since I have been so busy. Sometimes I am more productive when I have less time in my day.
Anyway the first project of my summer vacation was the kitchen cabinets. Yes we just redid them last year so this was a sad project deja vu. What did we do to them? I added a coat of paint to everything and two coats of polyurethane. Sounds simple and quick but the entire process took me a week. First we had to take off all the hardware, wash all the doors, remove the doors from the hinges, tape the backs, tape along the floor, drop cloth and then move it all upstairs (which also needed to be set up). That was before I even started to paint. So here is the house in disaster state all week.
Obviously we are not ever going to be able to pull off the open shelving look.
This is definitely not going to be the most rewarding project I have ever done. A) because it forever and B) no one is even going to be able to tell the difference. Case in point- here is the dramatic before and after pics-
I bet you keep scrolling back and forth wondering if it is possible that it is the same room....
So why go through all the trouble? We learned over the past year that black cabinets are difficult to keep clean especially when there is no protective coat over them. You would think white would be more difficult but every speck of dust and fingerprint is visible with black. Were they OK? Yes, but I was worried that once we have little ones with more messes that I would be kicking myself for not adding poly when I had the time. On the other hand, I was also worried that the poly would make them too shiny but we used satin finish and they look about the same as before. But now they just look cleaner and feel even smoother.
I still love my Ace cabinet and trim paint and for anything else besides black kitchen cabinets, I am not even thinking about adding the poly step. It is just the combination that those cabinets get so much wear and the black color. The moral of this project is to not cut corners the first time so you do not have redo it again and waste a week on an boring project. Learned that one the hard way.
Anyway the first project of my summer vacation was the kitchen cabinets. Yes we just redid them last year so this was a sad project deja vu. What did we do to them? I added a coat of paint to everything and two coats of polyurethane. Sounds simple and quick but the entire process took me a week. First we had to take off all the hardware, wash all the doors, remove the doors from the hinges, tape the backs, tape along the floor, drop cloth and then move it all upstairs (which also needed to be set up). That was before I even started to paint. So here is the house in disaster state all week.
Obviously we are not ever going to be able to pull off the open shelving look.
This is definitely not going to be the most rewarding project I have ever done. A) because it forever and B) no one is even going to be able to tell the difference. Case in point- here is the dramatic before and after pics-
I bet you keep scrolling back and forth wondering if it is possible that it is the same room....So why go through all the trouble? We learned over the past year that black cabinets are difficult to keep clean especially when there is no protective coat over them. You would think white would be more difficult but every speck of dust and fingerprint is visible with black. Were they OK? Yes, but I was worried that once we have little ones with more messes that I would be kicking myself for not adding poly when I had the time. On the other hand, I was also worried that the poly would make them too shiny but we used satin finish and they look about the same as before. But now they just look cleaner and feel even smoother.
I still love my Ace cabinet and trim paint and for anything else besides black kitchen cabinets, I am not even thinking about adding the poly step. It is just the combination that those cabinets get so much wear and the black color. The moral of this project is to not cut corners the first time so you do not have redo it again and waste a week on an boring project. Learned that one the hard way.