Update: How the paint is holding up.

The paint is holding up perfectly! Occasionally a child will draw with crayon, or the rivets on jeans will mark the drawers just below the counters. Nothing a Mr. Clean magic eraser can't quickly get rid of.

I am not a slave to the white like I thought I was going to be. I go through once a week and wipe down any cabinets that have anything on them that needs wiping. Other than that, I love them and I love the look.

As for our kitchen, we finally got the granite countertops installed. We got new light shades over the island. We had custom bead board made for our island so that the grooves didn't conflict with the outlets. We installed decorative brackets (the real name has slipped my mind) under the counter on the island. I haven't painted them yet because, our washer flooded into our kitchen in November, and buckled the wood floor. So, we are STILL waiting for the moisture to dry out and have the floors re-finished. So until those get done, we aren't putting the base moulding on the island, and since I have to paint that, why get the paint stuff out twice, ya know!? We take our time to finish stuff around here.

All in all, it's coming together.

Cabinet fronts

It rained. Rain and cabinet painting outside don't go together. So we smooshed all if the cabinets in our garage and I started on the fronts. I put the first coat of undercoat on the fronts, and sanded. I did the 2nd coat and sanded. This undercoat stuff dries so quickly as I roll it on, it's unreal. I had to keep the paint tray covered with tinfoil after getting the roller wet with paint. If I didn't, a thin layer of paint on the top would dry.

What I love about it, is that as you sand it, it just smooths everything out so nicely. On a couple cabinets that still had some grain showing through I did up to 5 coats just on the main flat part of the cabinet. Then I sanded and sanded. I think I sanded for 6 hours that day. No joke. 

I had a friend say, "I hate sanding, you must love it because you have to sand so much with this project." NO! I HATE SANDING, just as much as anyone else. But if I am going to tackle a project like this, I had to go into it with the attitude of "the more i sand, the better it will look". So, I sat and sanded. 

Ask that dust in my garage got all up in my sinuses, and now I have a head cold. So lame. But it isn't slowing me down. 

We got two coats on the fronts, waiting to do it again, and possibly again. 

Ryan finished the uppers, and we got those primed with Kilz and painted. They look STUNNING! 

We just have to decide on lighting under the cabinets. We saw some LED strip lights that change color. At first we laughed about having multi-colored lights. But then we thought about how fun it would be on a child's birthday to have some funky lights going wild in the kitchen on your birthday. So, maybe we will go that route. Who knows. But i will keep you posted. 

Day 12 - last coat on the back.

Ryan is just about done with the upper cabinets and hopefully by tonight they will be ready to be painted.

Today I painted the 2nd coat on the backs of all of the cabinets. I didn't use a stitch of bondo on the back so there is still grain showing. Who cares, it's the back.

As soon as they were not tacky, I flipped them over. I wss ready to get going on the fronts then I saw big gray clouds coming in, so we quickly brought everything into the garage where I gave the fronts another good sanding and paid extra special attention to every little bump and scratch. I did bondo on a few cabinets.

Then I caulked the seam between the cabinet moulding and the flat part of the cabinet. I used trim caulk and the handy little caulk scraper and a heck of a lot of baby wipes.

I spread the caulk somewhat thinly on the edges.

Then I did the 90° round edge of the scraper and scraped a lot of the caulk goo off. 



Then I took a baby wipe and wiped the rest of the excess caulk.

I did this on all of the cabinets. The reason I did the caulking is because I noticed on a few of the cabinets that there was some separation between the moulding and the back piece. I didn't like that look. Ryan calls it dimension, I call it ugly, old cabinets.

I wanted to get the fronts primed tonight, but the caulking took a lot longer than I expected. So, in the morning I will prime with the undercoat, sand them with the 320 prime them again, probably do that twice. I want 3 coats of primer and likely 3 coats of paint. We will see how patient I am. It's supposed to rain on Saturday so I have to be done by Friday and bring those things in for good.

In the meantime, Ryan got all of the upper cabinets made, and screwed to the walls. He put a piece of trim over the seam of the existing cabinets and the new ones above. I have to go lighting shopping tomorrow, so we can get some lights in these new boxes.



He also did a quick mock-up of the new crown moulding to see if we will like it. I would say L.O.V.E. Ryan is so awesome and takes the extra time to make sure things look perfect. Part of it comes from his profession, but a lot of it is just who he is. He pays close attention to detail and he is meticulous when he builds something. It used to drive me bonkers with how long it took him to make something, but now I appreciate it, because everything he makes, is always stunning.


Tomorrow is primer and the first coat of paint for the front, and the same for the upper cabinets. Will keep you posted.

First coat of paint finished!

This is the paint we got from Sherwin Williams. It's called Pro Classic, and we had them tint it to the color "Alabaster". Which is not bright white, but a very beautiful soft white. Unless it's glaring at you in the afternoon in the sun, then it's bright stinking white!

I mixed the paint and paint thinner in a container and did the "one thousand one..." test. Then I poured it into the sprayer through a filter, and off I went! I sprayed the backs of all my cabinets and only had to fill the paint sprayer cup twice.

I got everything painted and it looks lovely! I just wish the paint can didn't say "wait 24 hours for recoat". So lame. So they baked in the sun all day, I sanded them with 400 grit sandpaper and they are ready to paint the 2nd coat in the morning. Then, hopefully by mid afternoon I can flip them and i can prime the fronts. Eeek, so excited!

Today was the day! The weather is perfect, no rain, no wind. It was time to get those cabinets outside to paint them. We put clear plastic on the driveway and with sawhorses, ladders, buckets and 2x4s, we got everything ready to paint. 

 

But first, we sanded all of the inside of the drawers which are the same crappy contact paper junk. We also used the compressor to bow out any sawdust from the grain in the cabinet fronts. Then we filled in most of the cabinet/drawer fronts with Bondo to get rid of as much of the deep grain as we could. Then we sanded that down with 80 grit, then with 320 grit until it was baby-bum smooth. Then we blew all if the dust off with the air compressor. Just to make sure, we rubbed the tack cloth over it all. 

We used the Kilz primer for the insides and sides of the drawers. As well add the shelves that go inside the cabinets. (Remember, primer is for surfaces that haven't been painted before.) We applied it using our new paint sprayer. We thinned it just slightly with paint thinner. Ryan's uncle taught us a cool trick to know how much thinner to use when using a sprayer. First you stir up the paint or primer. Then you lift the stir stick up and watch the paint stream of the stick. And you count one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four. Your paint/thinner should "stream" for your 1,2,3 cobra but by one thousand four it should start to drip. This is real technical, you see. But this trick really works! So, that's what we did with our Kilz primer and paint thinner. I poured a couple cups of the primer into a separate container and added the thinner about one tablespoon at a time.  Then once I had the perfect consistency, I poured it through a paint filter into the sprayer cup.

Then it was time to tackle the cabinets. My goal for today was to have the cabinet backs primed and sanded twice and painted. Same with the drawers and shelves. So that in the morning I could flip them over and start on the fronts. EPIC GOAL FAIL! Remember the Sherwood lacquer undercoat? The product that I love so much?! Well I still love it, but for awhile today I loathed it! I put that lacquer into my sprayer. It worked for about 20 seconds. Then I thought maybe I needed to add paint thinner to it. Hey guess what!? Did you know if you use a lacquer, you should use a lacquer thinner not paint thinner. Who knew. Seems logical, but I am an idiot. But see I didn't realize this until after I added the paint thinner, and by this point the lacquer had already dried on the sides of my sprayer cup. So I sent the hubby to Sherwin Williams to pick up lacquer thinner. I pulled apart the sprayer cleaned it all out and then mixed the Sherwood laquer undercoat and lacquer thinner together like I did earlier with the Kilz. But guess what else! This made the lacquer dry even faster in the cup. I was livid. I didn't swear, but I REALLY wanted to. So, round two of pulling apart the sprayer and cleaning it thoroughly. I was losing daylight by this point. Like, within minutes. So, I just resorted to the ol' roller and handle and just rolled the undercoat on the back of the cabinets and drawers. I only got one coat on there and that sunshine was gone about 3 minutes later! My goal was not met, but hopefully tomorrow. 

Here is a picture of them all primed. Bad picture, but you get the idea. 

Glad today is over. 

Oil based paint

Let me tell you something about oil based paint (aka Alkyd). Not the Kilz primer, but the undercoater and paint. You can't buy it in anything bigger than a quart in Salt Lake, Utah and Davis counties. The government decided last year that the chemicals in oil based paint are harmful and dangerous and so they banned stores along the Wasatch Front to sell them in anything larger than a quart. The government also made it so that stores can't sell 4 quarts at the same price as a gallon. Who knew the government could get into your home decorating business. Stupid.

Anyway, so we had to go to Park City to buy paint. But, it was a fun trip up and the leaves were just gorgeous coming down Parley's.

Anyway...

After priming the cabinet bases, it was time to get my Sherwin Williams Pro-Classic OIL-BASED environment-killing, pollution-creating in satin Alabaster paint out and get going. 

In the meantime, I showed Ryan a couple ideas I saw on Pinterest several months back where people built above their cabinets to extend their cabinets to the ceiling. They put baskets or glass doors on them. For now, we will do baskets to hold important things like play-doh, puzzles and grill accessories and lighters. So while I was painting round one on the bases, Ryan was building my cabinet uppers. We will paint those this week and put some trim between the current cabinets and the new uppers. As well as big chunky crown moulding on top. I can't wait! Squeal!

Kilz Primer

I primed the junky contact paper crap with the Kilz primer. Remember, primer is for surfaces that haven't been painted/stained. I did one coat, waited for it to dry (a couple hours so it was really dry). Then I sanded it with 320 grit, and vacuumed and used the tack cloth. Then I primed again.

Stinky stuff, wear a mask, open windows and doors.

I then Bondo'd (new word) any deep grain, or dings. I sanded that down with 120 then with 320 until it was smooth and flush.

Then I primed the front part of them, the part that you actually see with the Sherwood undercoater. Folks, this stuff is SO strong in smell. I about passed out. No lie. After I would do about 5 cabinets I would go outside and just breathe. I didn't have all of my windows open, just my kitchen window. But, man alive, this stuff smells so strong. I don't want to scare you away from this product. It us AMAZING! Just be aware that you need good ventilation.

The instructions say to use it with a sprayer, but there was no way I was going to spray that. So, I used my velour roller and rolled it on. I sanded with my flexible 3M 320 grit sanding paper. It left it so smooth. I couldn't believe how smooth it was. Vacuumed, tack clothed. As I did that, I took painter's tape along with me and marked any dings or deep grain that I previously didn't get. Then I bondo'd again, sanded it. Vacuumed and tack clothed. Then primed again. I did this 3 times total.

Oh, and in the meantime dehydrated two boxes of apples. But, whatever.