Painting Laminate Kitchen Cupboards

Finally I have my pictures on my lap top so that I can insert as I type.  First I have to say I've done this before...but with classic white.  Our kitchen floor is a tan linoleum.  It also is dated, and actually not even in good shape...but certainly livable.  In pictures it actually looks yellow, when in fact it is tan.  To replace our kitchen flooring...not only would it be a pain and messy....but it would mean we would have to change flooring in the living room and the stairs going down to the basement...that's why we chose note to replace the kitchen floor....unless we were gutting the kitchen/dinette.  To get back to my cupboards....I love, love white cupboards...clean and bright...have painted two previous kitchen cupboards white, I love the look so much.  BUT...if we had gone white cupboards in this house....it would have made the floors look worse than they already are.  These 70's laminate cupboards....were only laminated on the front (and of course the sides)...,they were painted a flat dark brown on the back of the doors.  I had never seen that before....but because they were dark brown, I was able to take a door and place it against stainless steel, and our flooring, and it was then that I thought...let's go espresso.  It's a very popular colour, and then we would be able to 'putty' the hole in the middle of the door....and I also thought that if the paint chips, the chip would show a oaky brown....a chip would stand out way more on a white door...I've been there, done that.  Painting kitchen cupboards are so reasonable that new replacements....even refacing..but painting is definitely a temporary thing.  It did help us sell one house though....as I'm sure these cupboards will ultimately help us sell this house also.

So here's what I started with....minus the knob...I never thought of blogging all this....

Then these are the supplies I had...actually this is what we did before we even touched them with paint..

• Made a map or a chart of each cupboard door, and gave it a letter.
• When each door was taken off I sticky noted the letter of the door until all doors were down/off.
• Removed all hardware....when each hinge was taken off I marked the letter of the door under where the hinge was with a permanent marker...under each hinge, just in case we couldn't make out what the letter was.
• Then we covered each of those letters with green painters masking tape.
• Each door was washed and scrubbed with Lestoil....we did this twice...especially the scrubbing.  All grease has to be off your painting surface.
• Then we (my husband and I) took sanding blocks and lightly sanded each door, edges and all and the cupboard frames and boxes.
• Then we wiped everything down completely....we had fifteen doors...we will have more once our carpenter brings us back our doors that he has had to repurpose.
• This only took half a day....since our kitchen is relatively small.
• AT THIS POINT YOU COULD PUT ONE COAT OF PRIMER ON ALL PAINTING SURFACES....A VERY GOOD PRIMER....THAT IS WHAT IS RECOMMENDED.  WE CHOOSE NOT TO AS WE HAD VERY OLD CUPBOARDS AND WE SANDED ANY SHEEN THAT WAS LEFT ON THEM.
• First I painted all the boxes and frames....then covered our new counter top with drop cloths, sheets and we prepared a painting surface....put our leaf into our table, brought in saw horses....all doors were front side down...so I could easily roll on one coat of our melamine paint which I did in that one day.  Once your cupbaords are prepped your first coat of paint goes on very fast.  I used a 1 1/2 " angle brush for the frames and we used a small dense roller.
• Waited till the next morning and I put the second coat of base colour on the frames and boxes.
• We then turned all the cupbaords so we could paint the sides and front.  Knowing that since they were dark brown already on the back any chips we would touch up once hung...we had to leave more space around each cupboard so we could access the sides.  The second day we only put one coat of base colour on the fronts and sides of each cupboard and drawer.
• Day three we put a second coat of base on each side and front of the cupboard doors and drawers.
• On day four I prepared the glaze mixture for antiquing and graining.
  
  
  
  

Out of Order....our Kitchen Reno...first things first!

I'm typing this almost a whole year after we completed out kitchen 'reno'...I'll upload my pics and then type out what our process was.....

I'm actually going backwards here....this was the FIRST thing we did to improve our very outdated kitchen.  Remove the cupboards that we hanging over the penninsula.  For the three previous years I had lived here I had emptied those cupboards, as I didn't like them....they made the kitchen/dinette appear smaller....and completely shadowed any time I was working at the counter.  As you can see they were very l970'ish.  So they sat empty for quite some time....just waiting to come down. One day shortly after coming home from our winter Mexican vacation I said to Bob....can you take down those overhead cupboards???...he took one look inside where they were attached to the wall...and voila!  within one hour down they came!  Everyone who knew us that were familiar with our home....the first thing they said when they entered the room.....wow!  what a difference...it completely opened up that room...gave us tons of light and such an airy feel.  Next job....moving the dishwasher!  Yeahhhhh!

Graduation Candy Gift--for Canadian Candy

Well have to admit that I didn't take pictures of the bucket that I improvised with Canadian candy that I prepared for Bob's oldest grandson's High School Graduation party we hosted here on July 6th.  Of coarse the original idea was from pinterest....but everything is using U.S. candy bars and we just don't have that kind of selection....so I got my thinking cap on.  Looked back at what I had prepared for a Canadian Birthday Candy Card....and made up my own lines.  Well in the preperation of hosting this party....and doing this two days before the party...along with preparing decoriations for the party..i.e.  Grad pictures taken on the night of graduation...and other stuff that I put out around the house...I didn't take a picture of the final present.  Well happily I found it on Bob's nieces' FB...saved it and here it is (without the cello wrap).....

What you can't see is what is in the bucket....so my process was...with a poem in hand I shopped to find a container to hold the candy's that I had on the poem, so with finding the container first...then walked about Dollarrama along with my imagination to fill it up.  I was looking at everything as in a word form....so when I found a bag of Bugles...I knew that would nicely fill up the bucket I had chosen.  Justin's HS's colours are gold and black....so a black bucket it was.  Here's my saying....

Sound the BUGLES!

Look at you, SMARTIE pants!

No REISEN to listen to SNICKERS

that you are a NERD or an AIR HEAD.

You SKOR'd and Excel'd on your

tests and you've graduated!

You are one HOT TAMALE!...There's

no MIRAGE or TWIX....you are on

your way to make

'LOTS OF $$$'S'

GOOD AND PLENTY wishes sent

your way!!

Most of the candy was 69 cents...the 'Lots of $$'s' was a package of serviettes that are printed with Canadian $$'s.  When Justin rec'd it....he didn't want to read it out loud to our guests so Bob took over, and since he knew what I was doing...he read it out loud and at each candy....pulled it out of the bucket...it was a hit!  And then of course we had a graduation card with 'real' Canadian $$'s.  I may use this idea again,,,it was way easier than taping all the bars/candy to bristol board.....and the container can be ANYTHING that would fit your poem and the candy  inside it, this was easier than a candy boquet--but not as pretty.....ENJOY!

Kitchen Reno 2013

Not very good pictures....but the one side of our kitchen...with the 'ugly' counter top....the D/W has already been moved from the penninsula to next the sink....next what I used to paint the laminated cupboards!

I'm doing all this while I wait for my paint to dry....first coat....this is wall colour behind fridge and over fridge that I couldn't reach with the fridge in place.  And then I pulled out the cupboard brown so that I could paint the cupboards over fridge....underneath the box of cupboard and on the side....all unaccessable with the fridge in place.  I'll be soooo happy when I can put away our painting supplies....which should be today.  Cause tonight we are getting our gas line installed for the new stove...yeah!!!  And Bob promised to take out the fridge and stove....so we can get all prepared for tomorrow's delivery...this is very exciting on my part.  I haven't had a gas range in over 8 years...and once you love gas...electric doesn't match up to it.OK...away I go back to my DIY and check on Chico :-)

continued.....Kitchen Reno

Well what started as an idea or a wish to have a dishwasher next to the sink....has turned into our little reno for this year.  We've bounced around with our initial idea of not only moving the dishwasher....cause it's over 20 years old, but installing a new dishwasher next to the sink.  The original dishwasher was placed in the corner of the peninsula, which is a 'dead' space in kitchen cupboards....it's the corner of a bank of cupboards.  Most people have a lazy susan shelf....or as my d.i.l. has just a big opening....very hard to reach.  Lots of space, but very inaccessible.  So I can see why the dishwasher was put there....but it was so messy to always load it or access it, as the opening was in the dining area.  So that was a wish from day one....well as I type this we've had a brand new Boesch dishwasher installed in the cupboard next to the sink...part of our reno for this year.  We even went to the point of picking out cupboards, flooring etc....we were going for a full reno....gutting the kitchen and flooring...everything brand new!  So exciting till we realized our investment into changing our home would only be for our enjoyment...we would never re-coup the $'s from these changes.  So a long story short....we would be fools to not stay in this home for a minimum of ten years to re-coup our investment--and we didn't want to 'need' to stay here ten more years....so going back to our original idea.  'just moving the dishwasher'  we changed our minds, and did just that.  But along with moving the D/W we needed a new counter top.  There would be no way of getting around the much dated countertop....so this was the time to do it.  Since our cupboard was being re-vamped or re-built we decided with the help of a carpenter to have a microwave hood fan installed.  Since I was painting our dated cupboards....we went with a stainless steel D/W...so the hood fan would have to be changed.  Stainless steel hood fans are pretty pricey...unless you do a DIY...spray paint a white one...but having the combo microwave/hood fan was the same price as a good quality hood fan, we decided to go that route.  Only if Doug our carpenter could cut down our cupboard over the stove to accomodate a hood fan and still give me lots of 'cooking' space.  So today (Doug's birthday) July 23rd this is what we are working on.

To date we have:

• removed old D/W
• installed new D/W and the small cupboard next to that has been framed in
• had a new laminate counter top installed....and what a difference that made!
• had a new stainless steel sink installed with new taps installed
• the ceramic tiles around the stove came down....along with the drywall
• Bob installed a plug for the hood fan/microwave which has been purchased, delivered and sits in our living room...yuck!
• postponed our delivery date for a new gas range and a new french door fridge BOTH gorgeous stainless steel
• and the reason for this post....painted 80% of the 39 year old ugly outdated laminated cupboards

couple of Pinterest ideas

Time to pin my two gifty ideas to Pinterest with instructions.  I quickly uploaded the pics and then typed out the sayings that went with each idea...now to edit and pin.  Hope this works....along with typing on my new laptop ugh!!!!  Oh well....Happy Holidays!!!

I'm posting a Christmas money gift idea.....and a Birthday Candy card idea.

Hey Tootsie...a.k.a......Gals like you have no Riesen to be Slowpokes or have a bad case of Butterfingers, when turning 5 0.  We all need to be kinder and treat you extra special.  So all the smartie pants and wonderbar people around you will tell you....You're a Skor, Lifesaver and excel--lent person....No more snickers at you!  You are extra special!  Sweet marie, Baby Ruth, Mike and Ike and ....Oh Henry too want to wish you the happiest of Birthdays!  All the Mr Big shots in Texas and us too are sending you Gobstoppers of Hugs and Kisses.  Lots of Love too.....Bob and Linda
.....no more Twix...Good and Plenty wishes sent your way!!!

Gingerbread men with yummy icing, and oh so good and extremely enticing.
I set out to make you a dozen or two,
but time ran out, so now what to do???
So instead of the cookies, I tied with a bow,
your own personal serving of Holiday Dough!

Good Morning Blogland--Rambling Journal

Well back from our visit in Chatham...and received a very interesting, or could be interesting call from CIBC...so as usual we are now playing phone tag.  Hope it's what I'm hoping to hear???...or at the least, not what I could hear :-)

Well Doug and Bridgette are narrowing down their venue for the wedding and the month....so exciting.  They are coming over for supper tonight, binder in hand.  Can't wait to see their excitement over looking over menu's and  service options.  This is going to be a wonderful weekend for me, as his mother...I'm totally into the 'circle of life'...and seeing your baby get married to a gorgeous and wonderful woman is part of my love affair with the circle of life.  Doug and Bridgette....my heart to your heart...may love and happiness be with you forever!  Hope to keep in touch with them while we are in Texas...because we can bring back things for their special day in our vehicle....kinda looking forward to that.  Having a car for the FIRST time while on a long vacation...yeah!...but nay on the credit card...hope to keep it in check!  Well back to tidying up, getting wash done.  Why is it when you are away for some reason our clothes in our suitcase must mate and double and yadda, yadda...better get off this computer and get into gear.  Shower, shop and then cook and maybe, just maybe....cut out the fabric for the roman blind for the main bathroom.  Now that would be awesome!