Kitchen Cabinets Refinished: Part Dos

So my husband brought it to my attention several times in the last couple weeks that I never provided the conclusion to our kitchen cabinet redo.  Hence, here we are!

So in the Part Uno post I showed you how the upper cabinets looked after being whitewashed.  Now for the lower cabinets which were a little trickier.  We started the lowers a looooong time ago by sanding and painting the backside that is basically one big sheet of wood, a couple drawers at one end.  It was super messy- but after having painted the white cabinets and using the "liquid sand" we decided we really wanted to lower cabinets to be very durable.  After all, they will get bumped and scavenged by tiny hands more so than the uppers. 

So the first thing we did was to remove all the drawers and cupboards from the frames and JB got to work with the orbital sander.

Then came a coat of black paint- later to be followed by a couple coats of polyurethane which really brought out the color (I know- "What color? It's black!" but let me tell you- definitely more black and less charcoal after the poly).  The poly also helps add durability and makes them easier to clean.

 

We bought the same style of shaker doors for the lower cabinets.  They received two coats of black paint and two coats of poly.

 We found that the second coat of poly  went on and dried more smoothly if they were lying down when it was brushed on.  You can kind of see the difference in the the pictures above and below.

The extra job we had for the lower cabinets was replacing all of the drawer fronts.  For this we purchased solid planks of Aspen wood from the hardware store down the road and ripped them to size.  I would venture a guess that this saved us about $175 compared to the alternative of purchasing drawer fronts for about 20 drawers at $15 each.  They got the same treatment as the cupboard doors:

We then measured and installed cabinet hardware and drawer pulls, after which we sat back and enjoyed our hard work.  I think I must have walked into the kitchen at least 20 extra times that night because I was so in love with the finished product!

 This little space houses a cutting board that I haven't quite decided what I'd like to do with....I'm thinking a space for my baby and future babes to help do some cooking since it's a little more their size.

Before

After

Love.  Love.  Love.

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End of Summer Vacation Jubilation!!

 Haha, I'm laughing to myself thinking that my post's title may have given any readers the idea that we had this amazing, spectacular, unforgettable ending to our summer vacay......   Sorry folks!  It was just a regular ending- which was just how we liked it. We spent a lot of time together doing things we love to do- and that's what made it spectacular.  We.....

...went for a walk...

...went for a swing...

 

....shared some snuggles...

...discovered new things...

 

...watched rain bring the earth back to life...

...ate good food...while practicing a new skill...

...canned homemsde spaghetti sauce...

...became book worms...

...played games...

...spent time with friends...

...made seemingly elaborate breakfasts...

...and laughed and loved every minute of it.

We are already excited for another summer together next year, but are ready to cherish and experience all that life has to offer us until then.

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Summer is over..back to the grind

Monday marked our first day back to school, it's usually a bittersweet kind of thing.  Bitter because it means early mornings, missing Cailyn all day, and coming home only to find that it seems like bedtime and the next day come too fast.  But it's sweet in that we get back into a routine, football is around the corner, and our weekends suddenly have so much value again.

I'm just going to update with some photos from the last couple weeks of summer.  We did a lot in the first two weeks of August, but today will just be some pics of our Jolley softball weekend. 

Every year since we've been together Jerod has been acquired to help round out a team for a softball tourney in Jolley, IA.  If you don't know where it is, it's a town about 30 minutes West of Fort Dodge and it's super tiny, the town can't stretch  more than 4-5 blocks in any direction.  Anyway, in the past years they have dominated at the tournament for the most part and always won the championship, so we always come back.

We meet up with my parents the night before in Fort Dodge to hang out and so they can see Cailyn and stuff. 

Hanging out in Grandma and Grandpa's room after swimming in the pool- she LOVED it!

Gnawing on a rib bone at the steak house, this kept her happy for a good ten minutes

Shoulder rides are the best in this gal's opinion

She could not get enough of the long hallways, she ran down them at warp speed- and her feet were so dirty from it, ewww.....

So spoiled- eating M&M pieces

The tournament did not turn out like it has in years past.  The guys barely won their first game, lost their second game, and lost the game they played the next day- which kind of worked out in our favor because Cailyn slept through it and all the way back home, and we were able to get her back on her schedule.  I asked Jerod if Jolley days are over- he said we'll see if they want to play again next year, but if they don't, we'll be entering Melbourne Mousehole Days' co-ed tournament......not sure how I feel about that since I haven't really played since high school.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  I'll leave you with this final picture.  Even though they didn't win the tourney this year, Jerod still got to shine a little with an out of the park homerun!

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Kitchen Cabinets Refinished: Part Uno

So, a while back I posted about how we had decided we were beginning to refinish our kitchen cabinets....that was in March.  Well, we finally got around to moving forward with the rest of the process on the other cabinets.  And when I say process, I mean PROCESS- there was much sanding and/or applying of liquid sand, several coats of paint and lots of use of our dehumidifier because all that paint made it super hot upstairs!  I choose to do this reveal in a couple of posts because I hate bombarding one post with a bajillion pictures.  So tonight, just the upper cabinets. 

 Our laminate countertops are this gray/black speckled granite-looking beauties, and I knew I didn't want white on the bottom cabinets because of dirty little hands (I won't name names.....Cailyn), but I did love the idea of contrasting colors on the top and bottom cabinets.  So white went on top.  We bought this liquid sand stuff that was supposed to take the sheen off the varnished wood of the cabinets- I won't say it didn't work, but I won't say that it did for sure.  I think the best way would have been to sand with sandpaper, but I wasn't up for the mess, so I guess we'll have to see how they hold up as time goes by. 

 Those cabinets in the corner and on the left were the worst because the shelving is built in, which meant nooks and crannies galore!

When all was said and done, we were ECSTATIC with the results of the uppers, it brightened the whole room instantly and just looked so clean.  We'll explore the bottom cabinet refinishing in the next post- but let's just say they were a little trickier even though there was less area to be painted.  Ugh!

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