Refinishing our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 23

Yeah, so that post mortem was only about the refinishing of the cabinets with stain.  There was one last vestige of cabinetry that presented a fairly specific challenge.

The TRASH CABINET.

This space used to be taken up by a trash compactor, which was broken and we really wouldn't have used it anyway.  We found a double trash receptacle where we could separate trash from recycling, which was pretty awesome, and it fit the space perfectly.  The only trouble?  No matching cabinet face.

So SPF and I thought about options.  We had just replaced all of the appliances with beautiful stainless steel versions and we thought - If we can't match the cabinets, maybe we can match the appliances!  So we found a metal shop that could wrap the front "door" to the space with stainless steel, even the magnetized kind on the other appliances and with the same finish, we just needed to find a way to open the darn thing.  Turns out, our microwave handle was about the perfect size, so we ordered a replacement.

SPF got to work making the new door.  The one pictured above could have been used, for certain, but one other thing about our appliances is that they have this wonderful taper that makes them pretty and consistent and they blend into the kitchen nicely.  So SPF, being the amazing craftsman that he is, got to work.  He fashioned a wood door that matched the depth and taper, as well as the height, of the necessary space, and he took the door and the handle to the metal working guy.

We are pretty darn happy with the result.

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Post Mortem

I think it's always valuable to revisit a project after it is complete to see how far off schedule and budget and even vision you are from the beginning.  With this project, I think the budget was actually on par with what we had anticipated, but I can't prove that because I didn't keep a project specific ledger of all of our expenses over the course of the project.

The vision is dead on.  Even better than anticipated, so that has to be worth something.

The schedule . . . that's a different matter.

Okay, here goes.

We started the project on August 13, 2010.  I wanted to have it done by Christmas.

The project was actually completed on September 4, 2015.  So I was off on my estimate by almost 5 years.  In my defense, there were two babies, the start of a new business, a new teaching and writing career, and any number of other delays, but still.  Those are not good numbers.

But the results are pretty cool.

 Before.

After.

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 23

I debated labeling this one Day 23 or Last Day or Final Day or OMG can you believe it's done!?!?!?!?

Because it is.  The cabinet refinishing project was completed with the last element of adding the drawer pulls.  The kitchen itself isn't done, there is still the matter of the trash receptacle and the baseboards, but we are that much closer!

 The drawer pulls in place on the stacked drawers (next to that pesky trash receptacle.)

The drawer pull on one of the wide drawers beneath the pull out cutting board and above the wood vampire repair.  Soooooo pretty!

So, what next?

Refinishing our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 22

And then there are the drawers!  I almost have them done.  Just one more sanding run and the hardware, and we'll be good to go.  Sanding in place isn't recommended if you have little ones that like to run around or a bad habit of closing your drawers with your hip, but other than that, it actually worked pretty well.  I had finished the cabinet face a little earlier than these, so technically I guess this is part Day 21, part Day 22, maybe even part Day 23 . . . but I nitpick.

The paper towels on the floor are to catch drips, but it worked pretty well.  I started at the bottom one (so that the top one would drip into the bottom one while I was finishing it) and pushed them almost closed with some overlap so that they would drip onto the paper towels if needed and not into the other drawers.

Bottoms up!  This part went pretty quickly and then I let it sit and reapplied every day or two.  We are so very close to getting this part of the remodel done.  The kitchen only needs a few more touches and I'd stick a fork in it.

Refinishing our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 21

I have been so preoccupied with the floors and stairs (still not done, FYI) that I completely forgot about the cabinet posts!  The cabinets are about 95% of the way done!!!  All I need to do now is some light finish sanding to make sure all of the surfaces match and have SPF add the final hardware.  But check this out:

The cabinet situation as we've been living for 5 years.  (Since we first started this project and pulled them off!)

The BIG ONE goes in!!!  It took some finagling and muscle, but look at it!  Such a pretty door!  And we are hiding our pots and pans and pantry for the first time in a LONG time!  And the kids can't reach the handle!  They'll figure out pulling on the side eventually, but right now they just look up at the handle.  So nice.

And here's his matching counterpart.  The high up door.  We almost had another fiasco with putting the handle of the top door on the top, so out of reach of me!  (A narrowly averted wood vampire situation.)  But after a brief conversation we got our orientation right and it looks so nice!

Although now I'm annoyed that I have to open the door to get at things that have just been available for the grabbing . . .

(I kid.  Sort of.)

Refinishing our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 20

I am really excited about this.  The cabinets are almost done.  The drawers are almost done.

Yeah, I know you're thinking, wow, but I see pictures of them done and in place!  Doesn't that mean they're done?

You would think, wouldn't you?

Turns out I really, massively, unbelievably ran out of time.  The stair demo was going to start in two days, SPF had a work gig in the field for all of Sunday, and I needed to get space in our garage for lots of stuff, including the piano, so something had to happen.  As I had already decided to polyurethane these in an upright position on the work tables, I thought, "What the heck!  I can do this with the drawers in place so that I can fill them up, get them out of the garage, and get other stuff back into the kitchen.

Yeah.

So here's what did happen.  The mostly dry, stained drawers are in place, but have been left a bit protruding into the kitchen to complete their drying before the poly.  Now, admittedly, we are in a position that the garage floor has been cleared for other stuff and I should be able to poly these in place, but I am not comfortable having utensils and towels and measuring cups back in their home just yet.  Because we can't open and close them.  You read that right.  Because they are still tacky, we can't move them from these positions.

Try telling that to a three year old.  Better yet, trying telling that to a two year old.  And better still, try telling that to your subconscious that wants to bump your hip into any drawer that is partially open while you're carrying a hot casserole because you don't want your belt loop to get stuck on a drawer and burn your feet off.

Needless to say, children have gotten stained hands and I have gotten very similar brown stain marks on my hippish area of two pairs of jeans.

The cabinet face, thank heaven, was able to dry in a nice breezy (but without direct sunlight) area of our patio.  It was completely dry when installed.  You see that tool there?  That's a nail gun.  You see that seemingly thin and delicate piece of wood?  Yes, apparently that is crafted out of petrified railroad ties that laugh in the face of ordinary tacking nails.  So the nail gun was learned.  It was brought in.  It was attached to compressed air.  And it shot those little suckers straight through the impossible wood.  The nail gun was not a purchase of ours, but rather a greatly discounted friend purchase made from Todd and Linda when they moved to Sweden.  They were trying to get rid of the air compressor, which I did want to blow out my 4x5 negative holders (I know, photo nerd!) and SPF said, "Hey, you want that nail gun?"  And Todd, with that great "Am I right or am I right?" salesman smile that he has says "Do you want that nail gun?"  He threw it in with the air compressor for another $10.  So, this chapter of our remodel SPF has labeled "Todd and Linda Saved Our Bacon."

Which they did.

Refinishing our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 19

Back to the grindstone, less than 12 hours later.

Ok, so we are rounding the corner to the finish line!  SOOOOOO CLOSE!!!

In the light of a new morning, the drawers still look too light, and too brown.  (But every wood takes the stain a little differently, so I'm not too worried about it.

 Second coat.

 So, I completely forgot this little guy yesterday.  It's the piece of moulding that goes at the top of the cabinet face where it meets the ceiling.  Whoops!

 Here you go, little guy.

And I forgot this as well.  This is that integrated cutting board that I told you about.  SPF stripped and sanded this as well, so it's ready to go. 

The main area is easy enough.  It even has a trough (finger grab? liquid collector?) to hold the stain.  So, no worries here.

The trouble is that I only want to stain the edge that will be showing and not the actually cutting board area, which is for food prep.  So I am trying to cut a really straight line with a sponge brush.

And I need to create a really clean line on the bottom as well, which means I have to see the underside of the drawer during staining.  Yeah.  Well, now I wish we had one of those low cart things that guys always use in the movies to work on their cars.  That would be awesome.  Cold, dirty concrete floor, not as awesome.

I really do want these to match the tonality of the doors (of course!) so when I started to remove the stain and saw that it was still very light, 

 I quickly reapplied and let it sit a little longer.

When I took it off the second time it was darker, but still not quite dark enough.  I'm thinking a third coat today if the stain dries quickly enough.

So I did all the doors and the moulding.  I didn't restain the cabinet face because it is already darker than the others and it wasn't quite dry.  When I hit everything else with the third coat, I'll do the second coat on the cabinet face.  Again, all the wood takes the stain differently.

I am pretty proud of the cutting board, though!  Looks nice, right?

Refinishing our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 18

SPF is a rock star.  He finished up the stripping and sanding of the drawer fronts and the cabinet face so that I could start staining.  T minus 6 days and counting.  I need to get these drawers done so that we can put all that stuff back in the drawers in the kitchen so that we don't need to move it when the demo starts.  (It's hard enough fining a spoon on the buffet behind the dining room table.  I don't want to have to go out to the garage to get a spoon.  And then a new one when the kids drop the old one in the cat litter.)

So, drawers are a priority.  The good news is, on my To Do list of my five current jobs (I'm not exaggerating, but they are all part time) I don't have any deliverables due until August 11.  That doesn't mean I don't have to work until then, but I don't have any deliverables, which means that I can get to staining.

This is the first coat of stain on the cabinet face.  It isn't the most attractive image of my midsection, but I love it because of the blurred motion.  Turns out this was late at night after we had put the kids to bed.  I'm getting nervous about the floor project.

This is actually me talking to a student of mine who stopped by to pick up some photo equipment she needs for a project.  I told her the caviot to me lending her the equipment was that she keep it until the floor project was done!  Yet another thing off the floor (many things, actually, expensive things that I don't want to keep in the garage) and in good hands.  And being used, which will certainly make them happy as well.

 Clearing off the unused stain.  Again, cool blurred motion.  And again, late at night.

Stopped action shot of clearing off the unused stain.  (Nice flash shadow, huh?)

Wow, lots of these.  SPF was running the camera and I don't normally get this many different angles on what I'm doing because I am usually using the tripod and a timer.  So this is nice.  Different angle on the cabinet face.

More cool blur images.  I ended up doing the whole cabinet face stain process before I started on the drawer fronts because of the interruption (not unwelcome) from the student picking up the equipment.  We chatted for a while and then I realized the stain had probably been sitting too long.  This way, the cabinet face will be the correct color and the drawers will have more time to sit.

First coat of stain on the newly stripped and sanded drawers.  They are so smooth.  SPF did an amazing job.

I wanted to coat these in a vertical position because it uses less stain and coats really evenly.  The only other surfaces I could do this way were the cabinet faces that we stripped and stained in place.  It's a good way to evenly distribute a moderate amount of product.  I really like this method.

Here is the drawer face after the stain has been removed.  It is a pretty light version of the red mahogany, so I will probably end up doing two more coats before they are done.  All the more reason to get started sooner.

Three of the other drawers, also pretty light.  I need to leave the stain on a bit longer so that it can soak in more thoroughly.  I, of course, want them to match the doors.

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 17

So progress is slow on house remodeling projects that don't pay while you have four other occupations that do pay.  So Day 17 is coming many days after Day 16, but it is actually the next actual day of progress.

Here are a couple of things to note:
1 - The cabinet face on the pantry wasn't going to be sanded by hand in place effectively enough, so we painstakingly removed it, and
2 - I am not patient enough to strip.  (That was an awkward sentence . . . )

SPF informed me last night, after looking at the progress on the drawers, that I would need to do another round of stripper to get them clean.  I decided not to do that, and instead to beg and plead with him to do it for me.  So I agreed to do everything else of a housekeeping, floor prepping, remodeling nature while he did that for me.

 The first thing that SPF did was to stand the drawers on end so that the surface that needed to be stripped would be flat, so that more stripper would sit in place and not drip off, allowing the chemical reaction to take place in greater quantity and for a longer time.

 He also took the opportunity to strip the cabinet facing at the same time, so he laid that out on a table next to the upstanding drawers.

 Sort of an odd looking thing, isn't it?

 Good ol' stripper.  Another round for the cabinet face,

 and even more poured directly onto the drawer faces themselves.  With this orientation of the drawers, you can slop on as much as you need and then just sort of move it around with the brush (a demoted pastry brush that hasn't been used in years because we ran out of chip brushes) and voila, you get a less temperamental surface, no stripper on your toes, and an effective chemical reaction.

 SPF tells me that I didn't do anything wrong, it just sometimes takes two rounds of stripper.

 None-the-less, it's disappointing that the stripping still isn't done!  I'm good at the next part, so I'm eager to finish these off.

 Goooooooooop.

After lots of attention with the stripper and the scraper, SPF used steel wool to get the last remnants off.  The drawers are all drying now, ready to be sanded tomorrow.  But the floor project is quickly approaching, so I need to hurry!!!

Along with the cabinet face came the small piece of molding that goes between the cabinet face and the ceiling.

With the brush loaded with stripper, that little piece gets attention, too.  I don't know how I would have managed that with just the sanding.  This is a better solution.

Speaking of sanding, that was the area I sanded, so all the stripper is doing here is pulling up the last bit of stain and ensuring that if there are any other areas that were missed, they will be gotten now.  Where I didn't sand, the stripper was hard at work.

Here's the stripper at it's best.  Cutting through the over-painted area and the old poly at the same time.  Love it!

The sad thing about pulling off the whole cabinet face is that I had already completed one side of the face when I did the fridge surround.  So this section is going to take a couple of turns with the stripper and I am watching my good work melting away.  Sigh.  Isn't the first time, though.   We had to strip a whole door I had redone when I was still trying to refinish the doors in the sun.  The stain dried on before I could get it off.  The door was basically black and we had to revisit it.  So, this isn't really that bad . . .

Now we just need to get this stuff done, nail the cabinet face back in place, hang the doors, replace the drawers, and fill the drawers with all their stuff before we have to pull all of the furniture out for the flooring demo.

No sweat.