Work-in-progress Wednesday

I have never participated in WIP (or work-in-progress) Wednesday… mainly because I have never really had a project that I was in the middle of.  I am now currently in the middle of a huge project at home.  When Hubs and I bought our house last March/August (It was a short sale.  We put in our offer in March but did not get to close on the house until August.) we knew that there were going to be many projects to do.  I started this project in September, but lost steam shortly after.  I picked it back up over spring break.  It kept me very busy during my days off and is now such a large focus of my stress, it is about to drive me crazy!

I have started/continued to paint our kitchen cabinets.  Hubs and I both agree that we highly dislike all of the ugly wood trim and cabinetry in our house.  We want it all white, but we don’t want to have to shell out lots of money to get it done.  We chose a color (snow leopard) last fall, and the process started then.

Here is a picture of what our kitchen looked like when we moved in.  (Pretty much everything you see, we want to change at some point.)

Neither of us are happy with all of that “natural” wood coloring.  We would like to see it all painted white eventually.  The color under the bar is actually hunter green, which is quite unattractive also.  It will be painted eventually as well (or we will do something to it.)

Here is how it it looks now.  Ignore the fact that it is a complete disaster and focus on the fact that some of the cabinets have changed colors!

(These pictures do not show any finished lower cabinets.  I took these while I was in the progress of putting the first coat of paint on them.)

As of this moment the upper cabinets are done (except for one cabinet door that is down in the basement with only one coat of paint on it).  The bottom cabinet under the microwave is done! (I forced myself to paint that little bit so I could move the fridge back in place and out of the middle of our kitchen.)  The cabinets on the left of that picture all have one coat of paint on them.  They need one more coat, and then will be done!

Here is the side that I have not worked on:

It doesn’t look like much, but remember that hunter green bar from the first picture?  On the opposite side of that is all lower cabinets that need to be painted.  I don’t think this side will take quite as long, but it will still be a long process.  My hope is to get the west side of the kitchen completely painted this coming weekend.  I can only paint at night once Miss C is in bed and during her nap time, so I am limited on time at this moment.  Then I may wait on the other side of the kitchen until summer vacation.  It will be about 2 months of only half of the kitchen done, but I think we can manage.

The thing that is driving me crazy is all the clutter!  We can’t close the dishwasher right now because it is all taped and the tape will mess up.  So there are dishes that need to be hand washed all over the counter.  We also have all the paint supplies on the counter.  We have a blockade put up so the dogs and toddler won’t mess up the wet paint.  Last night I walked into the kitchen with the plan of cleaning, but left shortly after because I was about to have an anxiety attack at the disaster.  I know I will have to face it eventually (like tonight after dinner), but I just couldn’t handle it last night.

Before I prime the counters, I treat them with this:

I don’t sand the cabinets (I don’t have time for that).  This helps get all the grossness off the cabinets and gets the shiny coat off them.  I haven’t had any problems with primer not sticking or coming off!  After I scrub the cabinets with this stuff (which I got at Home Depot), I prime, and then paint two coats.  The cabinets that are done look great!

So there ya have it.  That is how I spent my spring break.  I hope to have the kitchen finished this weekend and will keep you updated with my progress!

Are you working on anything lately?  Any works-in-progress for you?