Kitchen ReFAB

Kitchen Remodel – How To Paint Your Kitchen Cabinets

by Karen on August 4, 2011

In 2010 I made the plunge and decided to paint our kitchen cabinets. I still love how they turned out. Eventually I will find knobs that I love, that aren’t $4 a piece, and add those. I might also antique them some, but for now I am loving how clean they look.

A while back my husband looked up our address on Google Earth. It has been a while since we did this and it’s always fun to show the kids what our house looks like from the sky. Would you believe, the last satellite picture that was taken, was when I was painting my kitchen cabinets? Here’s the picture:

Can you see my tables in the backyard with the painted cabinets on them? How funny is that? I tried to zoom in and see if I was anywhere in the pic, but no luck. I must have been taking a break!

I added top and bottom molding and beadboard to the cabinets first. Then I clean them really well and sanded only a little. I installed under the cabinet lighting and an under the sink water filter system.

You can read more of my kitchen refab posts here:

Kitchen DIY plans

ReFab week 1

ReFab week 2

You Failed – Or did I?

ReFab week 3 & 4

Kitchen Reveal & under cabinet lighting

Under sink water filter

Have you ever taken on a big project like this? Did you love how it turned out? I still enjoy seeing it every morning. I think it really lightens up the kitchen.

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Proof I Painted Our Kitchen Cabinets Myself

by Karen on August 6, 2010

Recently my husband looked up our address on Google Earth. It has been a while since we did this and it’s always fun to show the kids what our house looks like from the sky. Would you believe, the last satellite picture that was taken, was when I was painting my kitchen cabinets? Here’s the picture:

Can you see my tables in the backyard with the painted cabinets on them? How funny is that? I tried to zoom in and see if I was anywhere in the pic, but no luck. I must have been taking a break!

You can read more of my kitchen refab posts here:

Kitchen DIY plans

ReFab week 1

ReFab week 2

You Failed – Or did I?

ReFab week 3 & 4

Kitchen Reveal & under cabinet lighting

Under sink water filter

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Installing An Under The Sink Water Filter

by Karen on May 22, 2010

When we purchased our new refrigerator over 2 years ago, we opted for a french door, bottom freezer in Titanium finish. Titanium looks like stainless steel but is much easier to clean and doesn’t show the fingerprints as much. We decided against the in door water and ice maker. It is a space hog and we opted for the extra inside space instead. I mean seriously, look at that space. That’s room for a whole lot of yogurt stock pile. Oh this is just an image, my fridge is not that clean, nor that color coordinated!

I attached a filter for the ice maker and we just use the Brita filter pitchers for our water. Well with soccer season, summer and our healthier lifestyles, we’ve been drinking more water than the poor pitcher can keep up with. So after some discussions we decided to install a faucet at the sink for filtered water. We originally had a pull out nozel sprayer on the right side but we never use it. The plan was to install something like this in its place:

So, we headed off to Home Depot with our coupon in hand. We purchased a GE for $117 and used a $20 off $100 competitor coupon. After a lengthy discussion with the Home Depot associate, he confirmed the box had everything we needed. SHA! I should have known better. First of all, the directions were horrible plus, I usually don’t use directions. Plumbing is somewhat new to me so I wanted to make sure I was doing it right. There was a piece that I like to call a splitter, that connected the cold water to the filter. This is made of plastic, and it broke upon first try of installation. I also needed to cap off the hose where the sprayer used to be connected. Oh did I mention I started this at 6 pm? Off to Home Depot again at 8:30 pm. Before I left, I took a picture of the plumbing under the sink. It’s always easier to show someone what you need than to explain that you need a thingy to go on the thing that used to have the thingy attached to it! I also took the old hose so I could get the right size attachment. Once there, I learned they do not carry the broken piece I had so they were nice enough to take one out of a box and mark that box out of inventory. Then, I already had the cap piece I needed, but again for clarification, I asked and they told me it was the wrong one and gave me the right piece. This is where my, “it was almost 9 o’clock and I was ready to be done with this project” part of me took over. I accepted the sales person was right and I made my purchase.

I got home, and the piece they swapped for me was TOO big. I replaced the splitter and finished for the night. I went to bed with no running water in the kitchen. Saturday morning at 7am, I was at Home Depot to exchange my piece. This time, I opened the bag (in the store) and connected it to the hose I brought with me, to be sure it fit. Home again, home again jiggity-jig! Success!

Here is a picture of my beautiful new filtered water faucet and the under cabinet filters.

I do believe it was this filtered water that helped my son rock at his soccer game today! Just sayin’

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Kitchen ReFab – Long Overdue

by Karen on May 9, 2010

First let me apologize for taking so long to update you all on my Kitchen ReFab project. As most of you know, sometimes life just takes over and things get put on the back burner, no pun intended! The cabinets are not completely done. I cleaned out and organized all the drawers and shelves before putting the doors back on. This took a while, mostly because I wasn’t interested in doing it but knew it had to be done. I have some small touch up painting to do, and I still need to decide on knobs. I had my heart set on some, but then realized they would not look right with our titanium refrigerator (like stainless steel only less fingerprints).

After I primed the cabinets, I decided to add some decorative wood pieces to the drawers under the sink. These drawers do not open so I will not need knobs. I purchased 2 at Lowe’s because they had a better selection.

Then I started painting them! It was the last day of painting and my dad came over to help. I was getting ready to spray the last of the doors when I passed by a drawer sitting on the floor in the dinning room! I had put it in there and forgotten about it. It hadn’t even been primed and I was almost done with the entire kitchen! I slapped some primer on it and was able to spray it with the last set of doors. Yikes. Thank goodness I caught it when I did. I would not have been happy!

After I finished all the painting, and cleaned out the cabinets, I started on the under cabinet lighting. Believe it or not, this was an easy task. It just took some planning. Where to put the lights and how to run all the wires. Notes to anybody else planning on doing this. The wires come without the plugs attached. Once you decide where you are placing the lights, and how long your cords need to be, then you can attach the plugs for each one. I mistakenly did the plugs first and then had cords that were way too long. Instead of having to hide them, I took the plugs off, cut the cords down to size and then reattached the plugs. This sounds scary but this is how they come in the package.

Once you have cut the cord to the length you need, you simply thread the wire into the top of the plug where there are 2 metal hooks that pierce them. Then you attach a plate cover to secure.

I connected all the wires and decided to run the wires under the cabinets instead of trying to drill holes through all the cabinets and create more of a mess. The picture on the right shows the dimmer switch. This is a touch button with 3 settings. Then the main plug runs behind the refrigerator. Look how pretty! And you can’t even see the wires, unless you’re my 6 year old.

I LOVE it. The color and the lighting brightens up the kitchen so much. I was originally planning on doing an antique faux finish on the cabinets but I’m holding off on that for now. They look so clean and I’m worried I might mess it up. I’m sure I’ll get the itch to do it later. After I complete some touch up painting and get knobs put on, I’ll post the before and after pictures.

Click Kitchen ReFab to read the other posts on this topic.

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Kitchen ReFAB – Week 3 & 4

by Karen on March 29, 2010

It feels like I’m moving at the pace of a turtle with the cabinets. I have to admit we were all feeling a bit under the weather last week, so not much got accomplished. I caulked all the moldings and delayed the painting till I felt better. I knew once I started, I wouldn’t want to stop. In the mean time, I took off all of the doors and numbered them, so they are easier to replace. I made a map of the kitchen and taped the numbers on a piece of tape inside the hinge.

Hubby came in a saw all the cabinets in their fully exposed glory and his slight OCD almost gave him an asthma attack. Instead he took lots of picture and blogged about how he was trying to let it go…hehe. I mean if you think about it, how much of our lives do we spend opening and closing cabinets. If they were always open, we could save SOOOO much time.

Then I sanded down the exposed cabinets and cleaned them up. I took TSP (TriSodium Phosphate) and cleaned up the cabinet doors out in the garage. This is a degreaser and helps to take the gloss off the doors. Make sure to wear gloves when you are working with this chemical.

Then on a nice Florida day I set up the doors outside to spray on the primer. I purposely did this in the backyard so if I had overspray it wouldn’t get on any cars or garage stuff.

I got 3/4 of them done last Thursday. In all honesty, the longest part is prep and clean up. I HATE them both! I would rather paint all day and let someone else clean up…hehe. Today my dad came over and we worked together to prime the cabinets inside. Then I finished the cabinet doors and drawers. YEAH, I can move onto the real color. Thanks Dad!

Now I have a question for you. Does the name of a paint color help you decide between 2 colors. Here are a couple names I was considering.

Rafia Cream
Cream in my coffee
Fortune Cookie

The second one I was really shooting for. How nice would it be to tell people the color is “Cream in my coffee”. YUM! In the end I went with Antique White, which is also a fabulous name. After my dad left I took a few pictures, then I popped open the Antique White and painted one cabinet. I just had to see it TODAY!

Here’s a picture of the primed cabinets. You’ll have to wait till next week for the TRUE color. I’m so excited, and sore.

I’m searching for cabinet knobs now. If you have any tricks to finding deals on these, I’d love to hear them. They are expensive at the hardware stores and I’ve even tried Contractor’s Best, a home renovation outlet. I’m searching online now.