And so it
began. I used a deglosser on all the cabinets (which is basically liquid
sand paper) and then followed it up with a nice cleaning on all the
surfaces with TSP (which is a SUPER cleanser/degreaser...so if you ever
need to just give your kitchen a super clean, just this TSP stuff!) Next
up, I used a fine grit sandpaper on any area that the deglosser didn't
do a fab job on. (Like the areas on the cabinets we touch more, even
though we have pulls on the cabinets, sometimes you don't use them...)
I
used Frog Tape to mask off all the interiors of the cabinets and along
the baseboards. (Frog Tape uses fancy-pants technology in their tape, so
once it makes contact with a latex (or water based) paint, it instantly
forms a barrier. (Its the same technology in your babies diaper...that
makes the diapers bulky once they pee in 'em). I used the regular blue
tape (which isn't nearly as expensive as the Frog Tape) on other areas
that the clean crisp line wasn't 1000% necessary.
As
I was huffing the fumes from the deglosser and TSP, I went out front
with Lil' Man to play and started talking to my next door neighbor who
just painted her cabinets a few years ago. I told her I was planning on
painting the doors in the garage, so Lil' Man could play and I could
work. She brought up the BEST point. Bugs. And pollen. And other gross
stuff that lives in the garage. Oh. She suggested that I do what she
did, paint the doors on the kitchen table, in the AC. This way you don't
have to worry about anything falling on them. Score.
See how gross the cabinets look? Once I was all done with the deglossing and the TSP wash, they looked awful and started to get really dark in spots.
Thankfully we only had to go one night (like, less than 12 hours) without counters. But lemme tell you, those were 12 very long hours. Lil' Man thought we gave him new toys to play with (the cabinets). When he went to bed that night, I found a Goofy stuffed animal sitting in the bottom of one cabinet, and a car in another! And, knowing that we were going to need the kitchen table for the contents of those base cabinets, I had to quickly finish the upper doors, to make space for all the "stuff" that lives in our cabinets...
See, no counters or drawers!
I didn't realize, until there were no counters, that there was no support for the counter to the right of the kitchen sink (and left of the dishwasher!)
With all our base cabinets emptied out for the arrival of the new counters, our kitchen table looked like this! To say it drove me banana's is an understatement!
Once the new counters were installed I did a little happy dance. Actually, no. I didn't do a "little" happy dance. I did the Carlton. It was epic.
Ok, so we now have counters (which look totally fab) and we have a new sink (which was SUPER fab!) but I learned that because of the epoxy they used to attach said sink to said counters, we had to wait 24 hours before it could get wet. Lame.
