House Update: Painting My Cabinets

In going along with my plan of attack for tackling my house, my mom and I started painting the kitchen cabinets last night. My cabinets are made of what we like to call glit (glue + sh**), but I believe the rest of the world calls it MDF and cheap plywood. They were so dark and so boring ... I just had to change them. I'm making them lighter and since I'm going through all the effort, I wanted to make sure I do it right so I won;t have to do this again for a good long time. Enter Pinterest and many MANY DIY blogs. I have read so many different tutorials and recommendations for painting cabinets, I can't keep them straight anymore. What I have gleaned is that if you are painting any kind of laminate, you should:

1. Wipe them out really well - you want a clean surface to paint on.
2. Prime them really well with a stain blocking and gripping primer.
3. Paint 2 coats of your paint (make sure it's self-leveling or use Floetrol).
4. Make sure you wait the recommended amount of time before each step so the paint can properly cure.
5. *Optional* Paint with Cabinet Coat.

So, last night we accomplished step 1 and 2 on about 2/3rds of the cabinets :)

 Looks a little different, huh? (You can click the pictures to see them larger)

I'm honestly pretty surprised with how much brighter and bigger the room feels. I know people always say that, but already even with it still looking like crap from the primer it's a huge difference in the feel of the whole room.

I'm working up there this weekend too, so I plan to finish priming all the rest of the cabinets and then working on taking down more of that blessed wallpaper. Seriously, curse the 90s and its wallpaper. It is EVERYWHERE in this house! Even if it's not the whole wall (like in the kitchen and hallway), every room has at least a border in it and it just doesn't want to come down.

Something kind of funny I figured I would share...

I'm a big believer in painting a swatch in your room when trying to pick a paint color. I just can't to those paint chip squares - I would rather spend the 3 bucks and know for sure I love the color in my room than regret the $30 for the whole gallon. Anyway, so at first I was thinking of using a purple for the kitchen - my kitchen in our condo is purple and I really like it so I figured that would be a good choice. Once we painted a bit of the purple in a few spots, the husband and I agreed it was just too dark for the room (this may change once the cabinets are painted, but that's another story). So, then I was looking at paint colors online this week and saw Sherwin Williams' "Color of the Year" called Aloe. I totally love this color, so I had a sample mixed of it at Lowe's (in Valspar paint - did you know they could make each others' colors?!), just knowing I wanted to use it somewhere. I painted a swatch in the kitchen just to see, and we both really liked the look of it in the room. We still want to wait and choose a paint color once the cabinets are done, but tentatively the aloe will be the winner.

You may be thinking, "Ok, Megan. So why is that funny?" Well, the funny thing came later. While Justin was taking the hinges off the cabinets on Wednesday night, I was ripping wallpaper down in the kitchen. The top layer of the paper came off like a dream, but that blasted under paper just won't come down willingly; so most of the room looks beige at the moment. In between the pieces of wallpaper though, you can see just a smidge of the original color from the 60s that the original owners of the house had painted...

It's a slightly lighter version of the aloe color that we like! How crazy is that? That same night, I painted a swatch of a light blue in our office too and then found almost the exact same color under the wallpaper in the entryway. I find that pretty bizarre - it's like we are unintentionally restoring the house to its original colors :)

So, there is a little update on what has completely consumed my life lately. I'm excited to see how it looks after this weekend when I have more time to devote to the house :) Stay tuned!

I'm Officially A Homeowner!

So, sorry for the crazy 2 weeks silence. That's like death in blog years, lol. But in my defense, I got my house! We closed on our house last Thursday so I have been a homeowner for 1 full week. I can't say it's been all fun and roses,  but I am glad to finally have all the ridiculous papers and whatnot done. I'm not really cut out for that crap.

Anyway, so, my house :) I've been working at it little by little. I've narrowed down an attack strategy. First I am working on the kitchen cabinets and the master bedroom. Everything else will come second, that way we can move in and have a finished place to crash and not have to worry about a torn apart kitchen. I think this is a sound plan :)

As it happens, I'm doing other things at the same time. It seems that once we start working on those two main projects, something else pops up that we have to complete before we can proceed with the main objective. I started going around with my mom and patching places in the walls and discovered that the previous owners were some of the worst painters I've ever seen in my life. Everything in this house has been half ass'd and it has caused more headaches for me - the person who believes in doing things right from the beginning. We knew about a large crack in the wall in our bedroom, so my mom and I started working on that. We also went around and pulled out every nail and screw they had left and painted over. We also had to try to fix places that they "fixed" who knows when. Word to the wise - when you spackle over a hole in the wall, don't just leave it all gooped up and paint over it. You need to sand it down, then prime it, then paint the wall. Oh, and don't use high gloss paint - it makes your mistakes stick out even more.

Sorry if I sound upset by the way I write. Mostly, I'm just tired and I know it's barely just begun. I am happy though :) It's finally sinking in that this is my house and I can do whatever I want with it and that is a crazy thought. Today, Justin and I worked in separate rooms - he took down the cabinet doors (to prep for painting), and I cleaned a bathroom, pulled down wallpaper, and removed more nails and screws. We have to get molding for the cabinet doors and then I can proceed with painting and whatnot. I've got serious plans for those babies and they will not look anything like they do now when I'm done :)

So, I just wanted to give an update and apologize for the lack of blogging. I will be showing our progress around the house as well as catching up on various projects I've completed but not blogged about, so check back!