Saturday, July 30, 2011

Kitchen: Almost done!

I spent the 4th of July 3-day weekend and the following week doing 2 coats of polyurethane on the cabinets, doors and drawers. It really shouldn't have taken that long but it was so disgustingly hot here that I could only work on it for about an hour early each morning before it was too hot and the poly was drying as I was brushing it on. (There also may or may not have been an incident where I accidentally knocked over an entire can of oil-based poly onto the kitchen floor but I don't want to talk about that - I still haven't quite recovered from that horrifying fiasco.) Refinishing cabinets is pretty tedious work and I know this sounds ridiculous but the day I finished that last coat of poly was one of the best days of my life!

I found this picture I took right after the cabinet doors were sanded - this is my workshop dungeon where I spent countless hours working on those doors and drawers:

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(Embarrassing sidenote: we have never parked in our garage - its been a state of chaos ever since we moved in. Maybe this fall/winter we'll get a handle on it. Maybe.)

After letting the poly cure for a couple days we put the doors and drawers back.

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It was so nice to have the cabinet contents hidden behind closed doors again. We also loved having our silverware back in its drawer after using this system for over a month:

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Although it was convenient having everything out on the counter, I am rather clumsy so I was always worried I would break one of the glasses.

Here's a closeup shot before hardware:

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And after:

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We used simple knobs on the doors, and cup pulls on the drawers. I love them - they are like jewelry for the kitchen! We also replaced all the hinges - the original ones were brass so we switched to satin nickel to match the knobs and pulls.

Even though we still had to tile the backsplash I couldn't resist putting everything back on the counters so we could have our kitchen back to normal for a while.

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I think I need to bring in some more color - I love the black and white but it could probably do with a little pizazz.

Last weekend we finished installing the backsplash tile. It was our first tiling job ever and we were really nervous. At first there was a little trial and error (okay a LOT of trial and error) but after that we picked up the pace. Here's a sneak peak of one area (still needs to be grouted):

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Still to do:
*Grout the tile (hopefully today)
*Get plywood for under stove - right now it sits about 1/2 an inch lower than the counters and we want to bring it up to the countertop height
*Touch up paint around the sides of the backsplash
*Bring in some more color

2 comments:

Terry said...

i loved the backsplash. Subway tiles are such a clean look and are perfect in your kitchen. Love the new hardware also-it really does make such a big difference. I agree-you need a few pops of color-Home Goods is always good for me to find things like that. It really looks great-all that hard work is finally paying off. Where were Zeke and Zoey when you took the pics? Didn't see them in any :)

Meg said...

Ok, adore the subway tile and I want to do that so badly in my kitchen, but I'm scared to death. Looks like you have textured walls also? I would love to know how difficult this project REALLY was!