Sunday, August 1, 2010

more of . . .

. . . The Great Kitchen Project

it continues:

On days 11 and 12 (July 26-27) I took the cupboard doors out into the garage and sanded them. And sanded them and sanded them. This took several hours, and the vibrations of the electric sander—three hours at a time—made my hands and arms ache for days. But then, what do you imagine they'd feel like if I wasn't using an electric sander?


On days 13 and 14 (July 28-29) I started painting the sanded cabinets and some of the doors. I will not tell you the color. Ha!!


Well, first I had to empty all the cupboards.

Then I had this terrific idea that I could use acrylic craft paints to paint the cupboards—it would be inexpensive, easy to mix colors, it lets the wood-grain show through a little, and it's easy to clean up. I figured I could just cover over it with an acrylic sealer/varnish and all would be well. After I'd painted more than half of everything, I started wondering if this was really such a brilliant idea. So I talked to the people who make the craft paint, and I talked to the people at a paint store. And I learned that all of the good things I thought of were true. But I also found out that the required three coats of polycrylic sealer would be much more expensive than the one gallon of latex paint I'd need for the whole project. Hmm. So now the plan is that the acrylic craft paint is the primer coat, and tomorrow I'm going to get a gallon of acrylic-latex paint to do the top coat. The upper set of cupboards will be all done this week.
:-)

More to come . . .

4 comments:

Ben and Tami said...

I'm excited to see the finished kitchen. Melanie leeked the color to me and I'm a bit curious to see the end results.

orangemily said...

Sounds like it's coming right along!

Loralee said...

Darn that Melanie!

Stephanie said...

That's so exciting. :) No worries, my mom didn't tell me the color! I will be totally surprised, I can't wait to see. :)