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It’s that time again for another kitchen update. And this time, it’s got something finished. The upper cabinet doors are now all hanging back up where they belong! :)
After working up a sweat in the kitchen (not cooking – because I really hate cooking), I realized that I should probably start counting some of this DIY stuff as daily exercise. After all, I’m doing plenty of gym-like activities in here, such as:
Lunges (I’ve realized that since I don’t have a stack of paper towel rolls secure enough to support the door, holding things up with underutilized parts of my body is a good solution)…
Arm curls (the drill being wider than the cabinet makes screwing straight into the cabinet more difficult, which means trying a couple of times (I also have a flexible shaft driver, but unfortunately hasn’t been cooperating or making things any easier). And since I’m losing track of screws left and right – the damn magnetic bit holder I got isn’t quite doing its job yet – I’m doing a sufficient number of reps with each door)…
Feats of strength (aka hitting shit into submission with a rubber mallet)…
Stair climb (aka up and down the ladder)…
And losing my shit from broken and/or lost screws (snarling and throwing a fit burns calories, so that counts – right?).
Don’t believe me on that last one? Take a look at the evidence. That, my friends, is a screw that bounced its way between my counter and stove. If seeing that after standing on a counter for twenty minutes won’t make you sweat out of sheer frustration, I don’t know what will.
I get that from the outside looking in, it’s a lot funnier. Thanks, Carrie.
But after this wrestling match, I finally came out a champion. All of the upper doors are hung!
Big-ass task off my to-do list? I’ll take it! I have one more coat to do on the fronts of each door, but I’m hugely relieved to no longer see the crap in my cabinets every day. And since we haven’t done this in a while, if you have your own kitchen updates to share, please feel free to link up!
Sarah it looks wonderful. Very clean, crisp, and classy. Reward yourself with a beer and keep up the good work.
Done!
Everything is looking so good! I’ve had screws fall down that same crack too! INSANITY
I love the progress – looks amazing! And I would have crapped my diaper over the screw. It wouldn’t have been pretty.
Nice! Now you get to have fun with the handles. Figures with the broken screws and the one in the absolute worst possible spot. Somehow they just have a knack for doing that. At the worst possible moment too.
Looks so pretty! I don’t understand why people would want open shelves or glass front cabinets. Hide the crap, I say! Definitely counts as a workout! Pretty clever write-up. I’ve changed out a kitchen full of hinges by myself so I understand the propping doors up with various body parts. And I did it with a wimpy ass cordless screwdriver thing before I knew that all I needed to do was put a screwdriver bit in my extremely old electric drill (so old that the plug isn’t grounded). To re-magnetize the tips, run them over a strong magnet. Send me the broken earrings and I’ll make you a pair of earrings. My sister lives in Stone Mountain and her house has the same floor plan!
Those magnet on a long, bendable piece of wire jobbies work miracles when you drop a screw in a tight place. Kept me from uttering all the curse words on many occasions. The kitchen is looking killer!
Yeah! Looks great. Time for a pancake celebration?
Ha, you know it! I’m thinking right after the handles are installed.
Looks great! But I have some questions:
How come the handles weren’t put on first, before hanging?
Or even the holes drilled before hanging?
Wouldn’t that have been easier than doing it now that the doors are hung and unstable for drilling?
Good question! In all honesty, the thought never even occurred to me that I would do them before hanging. I guess I’ve only ever seen them put on after hanging back up. I’m going to take a stab as to why and just assume that it’s because cabinets are meant to be perfectly level, but when reality sets in, that’s not always the case (it wasn’t with mine – one of my cabinets was hung a little crooked in the corner, so I had to adjust the door to hang exactly the same so that the door had even spacing at the top and bottom or it would have looked crooked, even if it was straight!). So I’m thinking that by having them up, I can focus on making sure that the handles themselves all line up correctly.
The real reason why I asked is because I want to change my cupboard doors because I have the ones without handles (the whole bottom is a piece of “dented” wood where you grab hold of to open the door) and I want to add handles but I can’t because it will look silly, so I have to change the whole door! LOL
Yeah, I understand that. Mine are definitely not solid wood either. Would trim around the edge of the door (to make it look more shaker style) be a possibility? Maybe it will help you use what you’re already working with.
Great job, its looking good!
Thanks for showing me where to find your progress. Looks great. I’m supposed to be starting mine too next week. My sister is coming to help me but she seems to think that we can get it done in a weeks time or less! I see it’s a bigger project than I thought. My cabinets look a lot like yours…no grooves just more straight smooth. I sanded down all of them about 10 years ago or less, stained and varnished them so seriously I do not need to sand them. They don’t look bad at all but I want to paint them a light color because I’m getting new countertops. Also I put on really bad hardware last time around…gold and looks horrible. Realistically, what time frame can this be done? We are both just retired (early 60’s) so we have all day long to do this.
The biggest time constraint is probably going to be the dry time of your paint & the amount of coats needed. With the paint I used, there was a 16-hour dry time between coats (and I needed 4 on front & back), so it made for a long progression (plus I work full time, so it was a work-every-other-night kind of thing for me). So I still think doing it over the course of a week or two would work, but usually the better quality paints have longer dry times. Hope that helps!
Well I’m pretty sure she won’t be staying for 2 weeks since she lives 3 1/2 hours away but I thought maybe I could get the cleaning and deglossing part done before she gets here. Hopefully my husband can be of some help too but he really just hates these projects so his work usually shows it! So thanks for the tips.
We are doing this exact thing in our kitchen … same paint color, same white subway tiles. Can I ask what you did on the ends of the backsplash? Did you use standard edge tiles or did you do something different? Would you mind sending me a pic of it?
I had a whole post on the backsplash, including pictures of the ends. You can read all about that here. Hope it works for you too!
Wow, I just found your blog and your kitchen remodel is almost identical to the one we’re planning to DIY! Kind of cool to see what it will look like. Painted the uppers white and the bottoms gray last year; next planning to add butcher block and subway tile. Looking forward to reading your posts on what you did. It looks great.