Kitchen Update

I had planned on blogging the kitchen as I went a bit each day.  What I hadn't counted on was the amount of work, and the amount of time it would take to do that work solo.  It all sounded so easy.  Move the cabinets up a bit, slap a little paint on the cabinets add a few shelves and viola a whole new kitchen!  Yeah. Not exactly.  The only easy part of this was moving the cabinet, and that was easy because I paid someone to come move them for me.

Just to review my kitchen started like this

Not bad, a little generic but not bad.

By the next day it looked like this.

I call this stage the Oh My Gawd!  What have I done?? stage. It is too late to turn back, but there seems to be no end in sight. It just goes on

And on

And on.

And just when you think you are making progress the Mother Nature decides to make things more interesting.

I am using oil paints even though they smell horrible and are awful to clean up.  They give the most amazing hard smooth finish, perfect for kitchen cabinets.  I learned something else about oil paint. If it's raining they don't dry.  I had all the doors set up in the garage to keep the stench in the house to a minimum. A friend who has done this a time or two told me to move everything into the house and drop the A/C to help control the humidity.  It worked like a charm.  Of course now my house looks like this. And it smells.

But I finally started seeing thing slowly come back together.

 At last I could start on the back splashes. The tutorial I found on line said it took her 2 - 4 hours depending on the complexity of the design. Add 10 hours to that and thats about right.  I started at 10 in the morning and finished up at 11:45 at night.  By the time I cleaned up and realized I never ate supper (not too sure if I ate lunch come to think of it) it was after midnight.  I ate my sandwich while staring at the wall.  It makes me smile very time I walk by it.

Yes that is all painters tape.  Miles and miles of skinny tape.

Paint in progress

Finished product.  I love it!!!

There is still plenty to do, like the backslash on the other side of the kitchen. Today I put the last coat of paint on the top doors, YAY!! I am waiting for them to dry completely so I can hang them in the morning. Here is a shot of a finished door.

I love the way the wood grain shows.  I can't wait to get it all back together.  There are a few things David will take care of when he gets here: new light over sink, shelves at the height of the cabinets before I moved them and of course some cabinet jewelry (handles and drawer pulls).  Then it will be finished.  And totally uniquely ours.