When I look at this picture, all I can do it let out a long sigh. These cabinets literally have my blood, sweat, and tears in them. I love them!! This has been my project for the past 4 weekends. When we first looked at the house, I saw the ugly kitchen cabinets and said, "Oh, we don't need to buy new cabinets. I can just sand them and paint them. No problem...it will be easy!" I can't believe how naive I was! During spring break, Josh was going to be out of town on a YFC trip. So, I thought I would get a lot of work done on the house while he was gone and he would be so impressed with me on how much I got done! HA! Was I wrong! To start, I thought I would just rent a sander. No big deal, I can do it by myself. I went to pick it up and was shocked by the huge power tool the guy took down off the shelf. Oh...did I mention it was a belt sander?? Not a little palm sander that I thought I was renting. The guy who worked there tried to talk me out of renting it, but I told myself I could do it! He gave me a little (and by little, I mean about 30 seconds) tutorial on how the "beast" worked and then sent me off with a wish of good luck and a warning to be careful or I would gouge holes in my cabinets. Gee thanks.....that helps a lot. What did I get myself into??!! I worked for 8 hours that day. My goal was to get all the doors and drawers sanded and get them all primered. I was so clueless! In the 8 hours I was there, I got 9 doors completely done and 9 half way done. In total there are 30 doors and 8 drawers. You're laughing at me right now, aren't you?! When I got home that night, I could barely move. I was so sore from being jerked around all day by the "beast". I don't know how I did it, but I got up the next morning and did it all over again. My lovely friend, Aprill came over with her boys and they helped me get the rest of the doors done. I don't know what I would have done without their help. Aprill, you are the best!!! The next 3 weekends were full of more sanding, painting, more sanding, and more painting, painting, painting. Today we spent a few hours trying to figure out where each door went. Lisa was smart and numbered all the cabinets for me while we were taking them down. However, I got frustrated moving the tape with the numbers on it back and forth while I was sanding, so I just took them off thinking it wouldn't be that hard to figure it out. Well, that was stupid! So if you are ever in the same situation....don't do it! It was like a giant puzzle. Not fun! But, it's finished and I am so happy! I am ready for the next project! So...for your viewing pleasure, I added some pictures. The first is an up close pictures of the drawers, then the kitchen with the island we're going to put in. We're still playing around with the placement. We'll see if Josh and I can agree on where it's going to go. :) Next is a before picture....and man, that was one ugly kitchen!!! And last, the disaster of during the project. The pictures don't really show the color well, but the cabinets are an antique white and I painted all the handles and hinges a chocolate brown. The color contrast is beautiful...I like it a lot! We still have some painting to do in the kitchen. Above the cabinets and around the window is going to be painted the same green that is in the dining room. I think that will make the cabinets look even better. Then we still need to paint the ceiling (not looking forward to cleaning that ceiling...it's pretty nasty!). After that all we need is a dishwasher, stove, a couple light fixtures, and maybe a new faucet and BAM! It should look like a brand new kitchen!! I can't wait! So, on to the next project! Next is more painting (sigh). Painting walls, ceilings, baseboards, cabinets in the hallway, and I'm sure we'll find more things that need paint. As always, check back again. Hopefully the next project won't take as long as this last one. Thanks for reading! :)
