One Step at a Time: Kitchen Edition, Some New/Some Same

Well, my best laid plans have been at least temporarily been altered; Renaissance Handyman Nick has had to excuse himself while focusing on a family illness. 

1. Replace the glass in the cabinet doors.

WHY

Glass doors don't work for us. We really have to use all the space in our cabinets and not all our things coordinate or match or are even good looking at all, like our various bottles of hot sauces or vinegars or our sentimental and mismatched coffee/tea mugs. Below, a reminder of the situation.

Yeah, that's not decorative stuff happening in there.

EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES 

Since Renaissance Handyman Nick was unable to come to cut the zinc plated steel sheets to replace the glass in some of the upper cabinets and since this metal is thinner than the one I had initially planned to use, I decided to bust out my hardly-ever-used metal shears and cut the panels. YEY for leather gauntlets!

ETC.

Look! Magnetic! I don't plan to treat these like a bulletin board, but I think it's going to be super handy when we're working from a hand-written or printed online recipe. And finally a place to keep the measure equivalent charts that are never handy!

One of my most used recipe print outs: a crab dip for my brain-shaped mould. A Halloween classic!

I am still not sure I am going to paint the cleats that once held in the glass and now hold in the metal. I kind of like the homage to the former cabinets and the touch of wood tone inside. I think Eric would prefer that they be painted.

Maybe the magnetic thing wasn't such a great idea...

2. Finally the remaining wallpaper is down!

As mentioned earlier, I didn't take the original wallpaper off, because I fear that it is applied directly to the unprimed drywall as is the original wallpaper in the bathroom. It's on there solidly and primed, so for exposed wall surfaces, I continued to prime with oil-based primer, skim it out, prime with water-based primer (because it's faster-drying and less stinky), then paint - which is all that is left for that bit.

EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES

There are two small knot holes in the back of the open shelving section of upper cabinets. I like them and don't want to fill them, but I also don't want them to be a visual feature or distraction, so I primed, painted, and glazed the areas behind them... and a lot more area just to be safe!

HA! The knot from one of those holes stuck to the wall when I removed the shelf unit.

ETC.

I have cut off some of that shelf, added the "crown" moulding, filled and sanded, primed, and gotten on coat of paint on it! Hopefully, I'll get it glazed, varnished, and reinstalled before next Tuesday's post. Ahem.


The original list of the order I thought the projects will happen. Line through for complete items, italics for additions. I'll let myself do partial line thoughs for partial completion, because it's good for my morale. Note the sequence of the numbers is now, uh, out of sequence.

1. Light fixtures
2. Remove corner shelf in order to...
3. Remove wallpaper and repair walls (& ceiling) as necessary, get temp solution for backsplash
4. Paint walls above cabinets, around wood stove, paint laundry/bath hallway.
5. Cabinet repair, move, modify
6. Refinish cabinets
8. Level and refinish counter tops
10. Replace outlets, switches, plates.
9. Install backsplash, probably tile
7. Maybe try to do something with that terrible brick veneer wood stove surround?