remodeling

It just wouldn’t be a normal month at our home if we weren’t doing or thinking about some kind of project. I decided at the beginning of the year that I wanted to repaint our kitchen cabinets…again…for the second time in six years. Back in 2006, while in the clutches of full on Nesting Syndrome, I painted our stained cabinets an off-white. It looked great, but over the years, showed some wear and tear, and didn’t hold up as well as I had thought.

Because our kitchen gets Southern Exposure, I thought we could go dark with the cabinets and not have it darken the kitchen too much. And as everyone with kids knows, dark hides dirt! Originally I was thinking black, but when I got a paint chip and held it up to the wall, it just looked too extreme. I went to a dark brown, espresso color instead.

Last time I went with semi-gloss, which was a mistake, because it doesn’t hold well over years of use, and cabinets get used alot. This time we went with high-gloss latex, which meant we had to do a separate primer coat. We also used small 3 inch foam roller brushes for cabinets instead of regular brushes. The paint went on much smoother. It took three coats of the paint on the doors to get the right coverage. We are really pleased with how it looks. I’m still debating whether or not to get a clear lacquer coat for the outside of the doors…stay tuned!

Additionally, we took out the quarter round trim underneath the cabinets and covered the wood baseboards with self-adhesive vinyl trim in a dark brown. This will hold up much better than painted wood trim from vacuum cleaners, mops and scrub brushes. If we ever get our basement finished, I think I want to have that same kind of trim used down there.

Yikes! The new cabinets really illustrate a “dire” need for a new wine fridge to replace the never used trash compactor! 🙂

You might think we would be done with the kitchen, but alas, we are not. We are waiting for a new table we ordered to go with the window seat nook that was built this past summer. Then we should be done messing with the kitchen for awhile!