D.I.WHY???

Welcome back after the long weekend...what's that? You didn't want to get up this morning? Yah. Me either. I started a much anticipated project with my boyfriend David in his kitchen.  We have been talking about this for months and got going Sunday morning.  The plan: re-finish the cabinets and counter tops using this jazzy new product by  Rust-Oleum.  I'll give you a second...go check it out. Basically, this house is older (built in the late 1940's) and we wanted to update the look without lots and lots of money.  Supa-smart. 

We picked the lightest color, Pure White, and felt pretty proud walking out of Home Depot last week.  We had to order the counter top color in Onyx because they don't carry it in the store.  We also got white paint to do the insides of the cabinets, because let's face it, who wants white fronts with dark wood inside? Yah, no one.  We also got some sample drawer pulls and knobs to see what we were going to put on the finished product.  We thought the Martha Stewart pulls were pretty neat. 

So. We got home after a quick trip to the El Camion Tack Truck. I was so motivated to get things going. We started by clearing out all the food from the pantry and dishes from the cabinets.  Then Dave started undoing all the hardware, hinges and drawer pulls. 

Looks official doesn't he?

Meanwhile, I started peeling off shelf-liner and scrubbing all the cabinets and drawers with hot soapy water.  Sick. Really really sick.  The person who owned this house before was clearly a smoker. And from what I can gather must have been running a mini-Goodwill out of her home. Most of the shelf liner was new from when Dave moved in. Not so in the pantry. It was from 1950. Seriously.  Rank.

The knife was my best friend.

I wish you had smell-o-vision in your computer.  Once those were all stripped of the tacky, plaid goo-like paper I gave them a good wash and set them up for painting.

BEFORE

AFTER

I then did the same think to all the drawers and cabinets. Can you even begin to imagine how sore my arms, back and legs are? (Legs?? Yes, I went to the hardest Barre class of my life at Flywheel South Lake Union on Saturday morning with my workout buddies Carly and Lindsay and could barely walk the next day.)

All in all, we went through 2 gallons of bright white paint and ended up needing to go back for more. We worked all day Sunday and Monday (thank you to the Presidents for the day off.)  We haven't even started the Rust-Oleum process except to use the de-glosser on the cabinet fronts.  Needless to say we ended the day with teriyaki which I promptly inhaled ate at 8:30pm before collapsing in to bed. I didn't even stay up to watch Teen Mom 2. You know I must have been tired.  We have a whole week of this ahead. Stay tuned.