Operation "Let's Do This Thing" 2013

One thing about DIY - be it sewing, knitting, cooking, or home renovations - is that you will fail. There is no way around it. At some point, you are going to do something with the best intentions and you are going to fail miserably. If you are anything like me, you will proceed to sulk.

That is the sad reality that has fallen upon or pathetic looking kitchen cabinets. When we first moved in, I knew something had to be done about them. They had obvious water wear and were covered in gunked up old wood veneer. Way too ugly for our sweet Little House.

Last February, I mustered up the courage to refinish them. I read blog post after blog post on how-to's. In the end, I decided to follow this tutorial from Young House Love, and I followed it to a T. Lots of sanding and deglossing. It was hard, exhausting, frustrating work but I trudged on. YHL did their cabinets this way and they were gorgeous. Sure, mine weren't getting completely smooth, felt sticky in some spots and it seemed to be taking way longer for me to do it than it did the YHL crew, but I just had faith in the method and went through with it. Since we have only the back porch to dry the doors on, I worked a little at a time. I was in absolute love with the initial results!

... At first. They looked clean and perfect. Until a week later, when I noticed the first chip. I shrugged it off and said I'd just touch it up. But then I started noticing stain after stain all over the fronts! My heart shattered. All that hard work for nothing! While procrastinating and not working on a project all at once is usually a bad thing, it was a blessing in this case. I was bummed about the area I had redone (about 1/3rd of the cabinet fronts) but thank goodness I hadn't invested all that time in the whole kitchen for nothing!

Months and months and months went by. I was discouraged and felt defeated. In all my online research, I couldn't figure out why this didn't work! Every day I was reminded of this epic mistake. Half of our cabinets were white and looked nice from affair until you actually looked at them, the other half were just sad looking. I didn't know where to go. I threw in the towel for some time until I got motivated to start researching again. Some reading online revealed to me that you know you are ready to paint when you rub the cabinet with deglosser and your rag looks clear afterward. So I tried this. I would rub and rub and rub and an hour later, my rag would still come up reddish brown (from veneer) but it was working, just super slow. I got to thinking. This is working, just not fast enough. What if, just what if, paint stripper will strip the veneer?!

A quick look at my bottle of paint stripper and what do you know. Veneer can be stripped! The stuff that came off my cabinets was nasty. 50+ year old wood veneer that was thicker and stickier than molasses, and it resembled a bodily excretion. I was mortified and at the same time relieved: THIS is why it didn't work!

This is the amount of veneer stripped off of 4 cabinet door fronts using Citrustrip. This right here is why the paint was pealing, chipping and staining. After two applications of stripper, I had all the veneer removed and beautiful wood to work with. I then went on to follow the YHL tutorial and it was a major success. The only thing I did differently was I switched to an oil based enamel paint thanks to the recommendation of some friends who recently repainted their cabinets and could attest that the paint was holding up like a dream. I am love love loving the enamel finish!

This is how they look over a month later, whereas the first attempt, they were already stained and chipping at this point. What a huge relief - it worked!

So now that I'm back on the "kitchen cabinet painting" horse, I'm working hard to get these babies done. I volunteered to host a neighborhood egg hunt next month and that is my self designated deadline. Nothing like pending company to motivate you!

This past weekend I worked on a few drawers and I wanted to show the before and after of stripping. Older wood veneer was not near as sturdy as today's veneers so over time, contact with the oils in human skin would cause the veneer to gunk up around the knobs and pulls. Thus this nastiness.

Voila! All sanded and ready to go.

I could tell all the veneer was removed when everything looked matte and nothing had a glossiness to it. If I noticed any glossy spots, I would apply stripper to just those areas and remove it. The glossy areas would also be sticky, a dead give away that veneer was still there. So when everything was smooth, matte and not sticky, I knew I was ready to sand.

Of course, I had someone offer to help.

So that's where I am with my longest running home reno. What started off as "Project Paint the Cabinets 2012" has turned into "Operation Let's Do This Thing 2013". I'll share more pictures when progress has been made. I'm hoping to have my lovely white cabinets before the first day of spring!

In other news, the thrifting gods have been good to me. Here's just a peek at a recent find. I mean, seriously. Who can pass up on a creepy ceramic Indian Chief from 1974? Not I. I knew Chief was nothing a few coats of metallic spray paint couldn't fix.

He is now living happily atop the card catalog.

Have an awesome week, friends, and good luck on your thrifting and creative endeavors :)