Guest Post: Kitchenette Makeover
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Hey there ya'll, it's Tara again! I have been working on my kitchenette in the basement! We have company coming for Thanksgiving and I wanted to get it done before things got too hectic! So our house has this cute little apartment like quality to it. It has a bedroom, kitchenette, dining room, living room, and full bathroom. Well we revamped everything except the kitchenette. It was just some builder grade oak cabinets and a slab of crappy formica with a sink in it. NOT anymore! I decided I was going to paint them. This was kind of a test. I want to paint the main kitchen but needed a testing dummy! Ok so I got too excited and forgot to take a real before picture. Sorry it's dark, all I have is the camera on my phone!
So first we took off all of the cabinet doors and drawer fronts and hauled them to the garage! Then I had hubby put beadboard on the sides of the cabinets so it would look more country. (Our house is very cozy with the country theme.) I filled the nail holes with wood filler and then got to sanding with a sanding block (180 grit). Once everything was sanded down, including the doors and drawers, I wiped everything down with a damp cloth. Then did it again. Once they were dry, I primed everything, 3 x's. I would do a coat and let it dry for about 3 hours, do another, and let the final coat set for about 18 hours.
After I was done with all the priming. I went over everything with the sanding block again. I had to make sure there were no drips. I was doing everything with sponge brushes. I love them! No STREAKS!!! Wiped everything down again, and again! I chose a mustardy yellow semi gloss for the cabinets. I had to do 3 coats in all. Let them dry for 12 hours between coats and let the final set for 24 hours.
After paint came distressing. I wanted the cabinets to look aged. So I took my hand sander and sanded the edges and across a few drawers. Wiped everything off and made sure all of the debris was gone. Then I took some walnut gel stain and wiped it all over the cabinets and drawers one at a time. This step is awesome! You see your cabinets transform and grow character! Rub the stain on and wipe it off! I let this dry for 48 hours. Then sealed it with 3 coats of semi gloss polyurethane.
Once everything was dry it was time for hubby to do his thing. He added all the drawer pulls and handles to the cabinetry and hung the cabinets. He even made me a countertop out of 2x10x10's. So while he was putting my kitchen together I stained the countertop and decided to try and make it look like butcherblock. I stained it with my walnut gel stain then taped it off in sections and stained those sections darker by adding black paint to my walnut gel stain. Another section was done by adding cherry stain to my walnut stain. I sealed it with 4 coats of poly. I am pretty happy with the results!
Our neighbor was remodeling his kitchen the month before we did all of this so we got an awesome cream colored cast iron sink out of it along with the far right bottom cabinet. We got the mini fridge from a neighbor as well for $15 bucks! I plan on painting it at some point.
I decided I didn't like the wall color once we were done so I painted them a lighter color! During the revamp we lost a drawer pull so that is on my list of things to get at the home improvement store. All in all the revamp cost us $300!!! I cannot express how much I love it! I do plan on doing a back splash at some point after the holidays! Stay tuned for that!
Until next time! Tara
