Painting my kitchen cabinets was a great idea — Umm not.
Posted by Muudie | Filed under Home is where the _______ is
Or why the DIY channel should be banned.
Over a year ago in May I decided I was going to paint the cabinets white. I got a burr in my butt after watching 15 minutes of the DIY network and headed down to Home Depot for some kitchen/bath super-white paint, sandpaper, rags and a slew of other Martha Stewarty items.
Here’s how it went from there:
I think I read somewhere that I need to strip the old finish off so I take all the cabinet doors down from the pantry area of the kitchen and proceed to “strip” them of the old finish.
Sweating to death outside with paint stripper in 100 degree heat is making me hallucinate, so I decide it will go alot faster if I just rinse off the paint stripper with the hose. Heck yes – that was fast!
So I let them sit and bake in the arid California heat for oh, I dunno like an hour before I become impatient and decided to apply the primer.
All is well for the first couple of coats, aside from the fact that the paint is drying faster than I can apply it. I let each layer dry for oh, I dunno like an hour. (Do you see a pattern forming here?)
By the time I got to the third coat on the face of the cabinets, I notice that it’s bubbling in the crevices where the molding meets the paneling.
Oh great.
I decide I will leave it alone to get good and dry. I walk away thinking “maybe I’ll sand it later”.
A day goes by – Still tacky.
2 days go by – Not so tacky, but there is now a layer of crap baked and dried into the paint. It looks like the cabinets contracted scabies; I proceed to sand.
On the third day I realize that sanding isn’t doing a bit of good. Every one of those pock-marks is actually an air bubble caused by leftover water from my awesome hose job; sanding is causing it to remove the paint in those areas all the way down to the original finish….GRR!
I pile up the cabinets doors outside and resign myself to having to look at my pantry without cabinet doors until I can figure something out.
Fourth of July comes and goes. I proudly brush off the gaping eye-sore in my kitchen, telling friends that I am “re-finishing” the cabinets.
Thanksgiving comes and goes. I explain to family members that I had a small mishap and they should be done soon, one way or another.
Christmas 2007 comes and goes; I have the family over and they decide to congregate in the kitchen. I catch some of them peering at the contents inside of my jacked-up kitchen pantry. One of my friends decides to help herself to the kids’ goldfish crackers and mom comments on the peanut butter jar that needs to be wiped off – thanks mom I never would have thought to do that!
After more than a year, I have walked by those cabinets so many times without doors that I have now forgotten that they once had them. When friends come over, I just point them in the direction of the kitchen free-for-all that once was my pantry.
Fast forward to August 2008 – I’ve decided enough is enough. I am going to finish painting those doors and no one will stop me – not even me. So today they sit, laid out on a tarp in the center of my living room and already the kids have made a pathway around them like they already know how this is gonna go…
ugh.
muud: DIY, home projects
