Lake House Kitchen Re-Do Part 2

I'm continuing on from my post the other day about re-doing our lake house kitchen.  If you missed the first post, you can go back and read it here. 

The paint I used for the cabinets was Glidden High Endurance in the color Windy Sea Breeze.  It's a super pale sea foam green. I taped off the hardware on the cabinet doors instead of completely removing each hinge.  That saved a lot of time and if I got a little paint on some of the hardware it wasn't a big deal, because afterwards I just sanded all the hardware a little bit anyway. 

The day we started on the cabinets it was cold and raining outside, so we just spread plastic tarps on the counters and kitchen table and then painted all the doors inside the house.  All the doors and the outside of the cabinets needed 3 coats of paint.  I placed fans around the room to speed up the drying process between coats.

The backsplash behind the stove had a line where the original home owner had pieced the 2 laminate sheets together.  It always bugged me the way it looked.  Chablis suggested sticking a shelf in there.  Why didn't I ever think of that before??

We went out to the garage, found and cut down an old piece of wood, painted and distressed it and nailed it in place.  It worked perfectly!

It actually took us 4 whole days to completely remove, clean, sand, paint, distress and then re-install all the cabinets.  It helped that after the first day the sun came out and it warmed up, so we were able to move the tarps out onto the deck and paint the doors outside.  We were able to paint more doors at a time, plus the sun and wind helped to dry them quicker.  We also had to sand everything down before we started and then between the 2nd and 3rd coats of paint.  The whole process was very time consuming.

We let everything dry really good overnight, and then each morning Chablis would lightly distress everything we had done the day before.  We then re-hung the doors as we completed each section of the kitchen.  It was nice to see how it was coming along and it helped me to feel like we were making progress.

 

 

The next post will show the completed kitchen - please come back on Friday and take a look!

Lake House Kitchen Re-Do Part 1

I've been waiting   putting off painting the lake house kitchen since we bought this place eight years ago.  I just hated the dark cabinets and really tacky wallpaper trim.  Every spring we'd open the house and I'd say that this was the year we'd paint the kitchen and every fall we'd close up the house and it still hadn't been done.  It was one of those projects that needed to be done, but it's hard to do that sort of thing when the fish are biting or friends are visiting or I just plain didn't have the energy for it.

This year we started off with a bang and repainted the back hallway.  Chablis kept prodding me to just move on to the kitchen and get it over with.  In a moment of weakness I relented and agreed to at least paint the ceiling and pull down the trim and paint the fascia over the cabinets.  But when we tried to tear down the wallpaper, I discovered that it must have been applied with the strongest wallpaper glue ever invented, because it would not budge.  We were not off to a good start and I wasn't happy about it.  So we moved on to plan B -isn't there always a plan B?? - just paint over the damn wallpaper!

 First we repainted the ceiling with 2 coats of white.  I even removed the blades on the ceiling fan and gave them a much needed washing. 

Then Chablis started to paint the trim and fascia.  With both of us working, it didn't take long to paint everything.  It looks better already, don't you think?

I could already see what a difference the lighter paint was going to make and I got a little more motivated to start on the cabinets.  The next thing we did was start removing the cabinet doors.  This was probably the most time consuming thing and took both of us because the doors are heavy and it was hard to hold the door up and use the electric drill at the same time.

Once all the doors and drawers were removed, we had to wash them down.  The cabinet doors were grungy and caked with years of kitchen grease.  I tried a couple of different products to clean them up, but discovered that soft scrub and dawn dish soap applied with a kitchen scrubby worked the best. 

 

Once they were cleaned I set them outside on the deck to dry in the sun and we attacked the cabinets.  I figured it was a good time to clean them all out, get rid of stuff we didn't use anymore and then wipe them all down inside.  I kept going back and forth, trying to decide if I wanted to paint the inside of the cabinets too.  I'll be honest with you - laziness won out.  These cabinets are huge and deep.  I would have had to literally crawl inside to paint the backs of some of them.  That made my decision in the end - wash the insides down and forget about painting the interiors.  And I'll tell you something - in the end, I was glad that was what we did.  They look fine.

 

Come back for the next post to see the painting transformation!

Happy Mothers Day 2014

Happy Mothers Day to all the mom's out there.  But I'd like to throw an especially warm greeting out to my mom.  In the last 14 months she has undergone total knee replacement surgery on both of her legs and endured countless weeks of grueling physical therapy.  Once she finally got back on her feet, so to speak, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  It's been a real one-two punch.

But through it all, she has kept a brave face and reached for new heights...

Never once has she uttered the words "why me?" or "this is too hard."  Instead she gets out and goes geocaching with us and reaches new milestones...

I have never heard her say one word of complaint.  On the days that she feels good she will go out for something to eat...

 And has even found the energy to act silly and "phoon" with her family....

She puts on a brave face when she gets up each day and greets it with her iron will and strong determination.  I know there have been days when she's been frustrated, scared and worried, but she never shows it.   She is a shining example to her whole family on how to face your struggles head on and just deal with them.  She is very no-nonsense.

The worst part has been losing her hair, but she dealt with that by bravely shaving her head first, just to show cancer who really was the boss and in charge.  You gotta love my mom!

Mom, I love you more than you will ever know.  You have always been my strength, my rock and my perfect example of how to be strong.  Happy Mothers Day.

Chablis Catches a Small Mouth Bass

Last week Chablis caught a really nice small mouth bass that weighed in at 4 1/2 lbs..

and out fished her dad in the process....

When it comes to bass, we practice catch and release....

Chablis gives the bass a nice swish in the water....

And with a flip and a wave of his tail, he was gone....

 

But that smile on her face and the thrill of reeling him in will last a lifetime.

Repurposed Bird Cutting Board

Last week when we were picking up items at estate sales, one of my little treasures was an ugly cutting board.  You can see what it looked like in this post here.  One of my favorite new things to do is repurpose used cutting boards.  I see so many old ones at garage sales - you know, the ones with thick heavy wood and some of them are cut into cute shapes.  Most people will just pass them by because they are well worn and scarred with knife cuts from frequent use.  But that doesn't deter me and they are usually priced for less than a dollar.

I take the cutting board home and wash it really well with hot soapy water and a little bleach and then I run it thru the dishwasher.  Afterwards I'll lay it outside in the sun to dry really good for a day or 2.  Then I take my electric sander and sand down the entire board, removing years of use, cuts, gouges, and ugly paint jobs, giving it a nice, clean finish.   

I'll have Chablis make me some stencils on her Cricut machine and outline whatever I want with a pencil.  I heat up my wood burning tool and start burning.  The ugly painted board with the fruit on it turned out to have some beautiful wood underneath with a couple of pretty natural stains.  I washed it down really good again and let it dry, added a piece of twine to hang it and here it is.  It looks like brand new....

The new bird cutting board is now hanging at the lake house with the other board I did last week.  Now I'm on the lookout for a slightly smaller board to complete a set of three to hang and use.

 

Linking up with....

 Beyond the Picket Fence

Craft Dictator

My Repurposed Life

Sunny Simple Life

The Crappie are Running

Springtime at the lake means that the crappie are running and so far this has been a pretty good season.  We've caught a bunch....

And you know what a basket of fresh crappie means, don't you?  Fish fry!!

 With fried potatoes, macaroni and cheese and baked beans.  It doesn't get much better than that!

Estate Sale Finds - May 4

I am such a sucker for estate sales - I cannot pass one by.  You just never know what treasures you are going to find.  Here's last week ends haul.

I have always liked and wanted a vintage Coleman cooler.  We were in the basement at a sale and this one was shoved up on a shelf in a back room.  I made Louie pull it down.  I almost wanted to dance when I saw the excellent condition it was in and it had the original inner compartment pieces.  It didn't have a price tag on it and I practically held my breath when I asked if they would be interested in selling it.  We negotiated down to $ 8.00 and I was thrilled to get it.  No ecstatic is more like it!

Then, we walked into a church rummage sale where co-incidentally my kids had gone to pre-school.  Chablis was with us and asked if we could go up to the pre-school room so she could take a look around.  The pre-school area was filled with racks of clothes for sale, and on a corner table sat this stunning Coleman 2 quart thermos - also in excellent condition and red on top of it.  I snapped it up and since it was for the church, I didn't even try to dicker down from the asking price of $ 2.50.   What a fab set and we can use them at the lake and Chablis can also use them as props for photo shoots for her BeeAnn Designs items.  Score!!

Chablis picked up all 3 of these crates at the same sale.  We love the ones that have graphics and original text on them.  She has plans to turn one into a rolling storage box.  More to come on that in a later post.  Love the one that says Salted Peanuts.

And we picked up a bunch of small items as well.  A Farm Fresh spoon holder that I don't think had ever been used, and a beautiful yellow spatula, also brand new.  I picked up an assortment of wooden spoons, with plans to use my wood burning tool on them.  I also bought that ugly cutting board with the horrid graphic on it.  I'll be taking my sander to that really soon and repurposing it.  More to come on that later as well.  I also got a cool sewing machine tin that says Zig Zag on it.  Beautiful green color and do not make the same mistake I made and put it in the dishwasher to clean it up.  OMG - the color faded and I was so mad about that.  What the heck was I thinking??  I also got a nice set of Corning ware bake pans - one 8" square pan and one a loaf pan, both of which promptly went to the lake house.

Chablis picked up a brand new seat cushion for a chair she is re-doing, although it reeked of something so we threw it in the washing machine and set it outside to dry for 2 days and now it's fine. And check out the cool advertising coat hangers.  We found them in a box marked free and snatched them up.  Two of them are from Hilton Hotels and one is from the United Hotel chain. 

My mind is reeling with re-purposing projects, so I know I'll have lots to share with you soon.