April 24, 2012

Kitchen Confidential

People have been wondering where my posts about the new house in Montauk have been. Well...I was looking to post impressive "before and after" photos  like those you see on DIY home decor blogs and NOT "before and currently frustrated". But for your entertainment, here I go.

When Herb closed on the house, there were two projects that captured my attention immediately. The first was painting the wainscotting in the living room and the second was painting the kitchen cabinets. 

The wainscotting was my maiden project which took me about a week of priming, painting and filling in every little ridge and crevice. It was a pretty straight forward task. You could say my studio art major in college may have helped.  

BEFORE

AFTER (notice the kitchen cabinets drying on floor)

The second and current project has been the kitchen cabinets and drawers. It has taken much longer than anticipated (I think we may be going on a month) to get it back to working order. I wanted to share some of the Faux Pas we have encountered: 

1) Even though paint appears to be dry do not stack or lean painted pieces on eachother because they will stick together. (Is it now undeniably obvious that we are novices at this?) I spent all of this last weekend, re-sanding and touch up priming and painting the cabinet doors. Can you say déjà vu?

2) All "vintage" wood cabinets are NOT created equal. It has taken us 3 attempts to buy the correct sized hinges. We finally purchased ones that fit,  but they only worked on 5 cabinet doors. What a nightmare! Now we plan to cut into the cabinet casing in order to make this work. 

Live and learn...the hard way. More photos hopefully to come after THIS weekend.

BEFORE

BEFORE

Hinges BEFORE

AFTER (actually all 4 fit on!)