Rawlins Family

Rawlins Family

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Baby Steps

It's been a long week since the last update. I'll start from the beginning but give you the Cliff Notes version.

Thursday and Friday: Dismantling of cabinets, sanding/scraping, more sanding and sraping. I swear I thought we were done sanding numerous times. Thursday night I emailed Steph and said, "we're done sanding," to which she replied, "You're an animal!" Well, yeah, we would have been if we were actually DONE! But no, it was late day Friday before we put the sandpaper and sander away. What a grisly, messy, laborious, terrible, horrible, no-good job! Friday evening we started priming cabinets and wainscoting.

Saturday: Priming. Over and over and over again we primed. That's DARK 70's wood under there, people.

Sunday: Our day of rest. It wasn't the most restful considering we had a demolition zone in the kitchen but oh well.

Monday: More priming, maybe even some more sanding in spots? By the end of the day we got to PAINT finally! The wainscoting was finished by the end of the day. Blinds were all taken down Monday as well. I don't know why, but I really love to spackle. Chase also got the cabinet doors painted which literally took 5 solid hours in our hot, sweaty garage. We didn't want to open the garage door for fear of dust blowing around - it was windy. Chase deserves major props!

Tuesday: Last day of Chase's vacation. We finished painting everything and got the new blinds up. After inspection we decided the cabinet doors looked good and didn't need anymore coats (much to Chase's relief).

Still to do: re-assemble cabinets. Texas is humid. Gustav came through at the same time as our kitchen renovation and made it even more humid. So the paint is taking awhile to cure. Once the paint loses it's tacky-ness we'll be able to put doors back on and drawers back in. I'm still living out of boxes and it's driving me insane. But it's worth it because I'm loving the results in our kitchen! Here are a couple before/during/after pics.

P1000055 Before - notice the super mini-blinds and the weird color scheme. It was gray on bottom, white chair-rails/baseboard, beigey creamy walls and weird backsplash. Four different colors. All in flat paint. It got SO STAINED and gross from our kids spilling food.

P1000057 Different view. Notice the 2 skinny windows with individual mini-blinds. Chic.

P1020703 Day one of sanding.

P1020704 Close up of the awesome flat paint.

P1020705 Day 2 sanding scraping.P1020739 Finished wainscoting and walls. P1020740Major improvement.

 

So while we were doing all of this disaster work in the kitchen Sophie was learning to do this:

Super convenient timing.

6 comments:

The Fowers said...

Oh, I'm glad I didn't live in your house this week. Between you and Shari, my arms hurt just by association. Great finished result, though! Looks beautiful.
What a cute crawl! Go baby Sophie!

Chrystapooh said...

Sophie is doing Cannon's one-knee, one-foot crawl! Maybe it's a genetic thing...

I love your wainscoting. It looks fab. Never before noticed the groovy 70's detail on your lower cabinet doors. So fun to work around, eh?

How's it going with the hardware/hinges? Is it working out all right?

Can't wait to see the finished product...

Anna@Exasperation said...

I forgot Cannon crawled like that! I love it. I hope she crawls like that forever.
Would that the 70's styling was only on the LOWER cabinet doors. Dear sister, it's on ALL of the cabinet doors. (sob)
We have the citri-strip and paint for the hinges we just haven't worked on them yet. I did find handles that I love, though.

Christy said...

It looks great Anna! You guys did tackle a huge project and made the most of your time to do it! Great job.

Shari said...

So any interest in sewing new kitchen curtains this week- what with your free extra hand you'll have once one is in class!

Sara said...

Looks great! And congrats to Sophie for becoming mobile. I love the "foot/knee" combo. So cute!