KITCHEN RENO

BEFORE SHOT

Here is a shot of our kitchen before, well one side of it anyway.

BEFORE

 AFTER SHOT

...and voila, the after.  Counter tops still need to be changed ideally to butcher block to match our Ikea counter cabinet on the other side of the kitchen.   As well, the walls need to be painted and the floor, sink, faucet, lights all need to be changed.  The list goes on and on, but over all this is a pretty good start.

AFTER



AFTER

HARDWARE



NIFTY HANDLES

I really wanted branch shaped wrought iron hardware for the handles that I once saw at Lee Valley Tools on line, but when I went back recently to search for them again, I couldn't find them.  So I opted for these little wrought iron cuties instead, which I found at Home Depot & Rona.  They are a huge step up from the green plastic hardware that was on the cupboards when we bought the house.

A CHALKBOARD TOO!

 And in this little nook I've made a chalkboard!  With a little chalkboard paint and some some m.d.f. anything can happen. :-)

There were 16 steps to refinishing each & every drawer and cupboard door.

Maybe there is simpler way but I wanted to be sure the wood grain still showed through and I didn't want (after all my hard work) anthing to get marred up.  So, this is how I did it.

1. Remove door or drawer and its hardware.

2. Sand each side down to rid it of any sheen.

3. Vaccume each side.

4. Wash each side with a solution of  TSP.

5. Rinse each side with warm water to remove the TSP solution.

6. Dry each side with towel and let air dry for a bit.

7. Paint front side first & let dry for 2 hrs. (as stated on the can, it takes 2hrs to dry to touch and 4hrs before recoating).

8. Flip over and paint back side - let dry 2hrs. then flip again and do the front side again.

9. Repeat steps 7& 8 until you have painted the back side with 2 coats and the top side with 3 coats.

10. Let dry to touch aprox 2hrs.

11. Re-attach the doors to the cabinet.

Note; I was doing to 2 -3 doors/drawers at a time and set a timer to go off every two hours.