It's finally done

So here is what happened.  We moved and I went on Pinterest. My first mistake. I pinned tons of things to do this summer. Piece of cake. Pinterest makes it look so easy. I should have all these projects done in a two weeks right?

Wrong. But one is done and although I see some flaws I have learned a lot. What I took on was this beauty. 

I call it a buffet cause that is what my parents called theirs. Holds all our nice things. The hitch is that we had dark cabinets in the kitchen and this kind of stuck out more than I liked. So I perused some websites and decided to start the process. 

I bought a little sander at Home Depot and sanded away. And then did some more. And more. What was taking so long? I started to read up on it more and people said if the cabinet had a veneer it just needed a 240 grit. I scoff, he he. Maybe my sander and hands were not powerful enough but I just couldn't get it to the grain. I used 80 and then 120 to smooth it out but I found the process painstakingly long as one shelf took me two hours to do. Ugh. Maybe I need more patience. He he. 

Mark's Uncle John and Aunt Marie came by for a family dinner one day and suggested I try a chemical sander. At this point I was willing to try anything. So I bought a scraper and this little product. 

So I went away at it. Smoothed it over all the furniture. Waiting for approximately 3-4 hours and scraped it off.

So what do I have to say about this. It is messy. Seriously. And it can take a bit of time to shave off all of the product. But it works. Really well. And it cut my time to doing four shelves in one hour. I did go over all of the surfaces with the sander to make sure it was all smooth and even. Cleans everything right up. 

So the next part was to clean it all off and apply the stain. The hitch. The first product I bought basically stained the wood the exact same colour I just sanded down. Aaaaaaahhhh. So I searched for this gal's blog. She is my hairdresser and decorator extraordinaire. I knew she had done her kitchen cabinets so I looked up the product and used it.

I chose espresso for my colour as you will see. And it worked just as she described it. I did about four coats overall. And loved it as it has a nice sheen to it too. My only issue was my painting technique may not always be the best as I had some drips that escaped and dried. Grrrrrr. I need to apply a thinner coat next time I believe. And because I had a cat and no matter how hard I cleaned I still found strands of hair at times. He he. He is permanently etched in my furniture. 

New hardware after that as there was no way I was going to paint the wooden knobs. 

I then applied grey scrapbook paper on the back to match the back of our kitchen wall. And maybe hide some mistakes. He he. This was not before I put glittery silver paper on it and Mark said in his "I am not going to insult it directly but I am making it known I don't like it" voice of "oh it's sparkly". The next morning I looked and it did look like a giant disco ball. Grey paper it is. 

Obviously I did all this before putting all the things back in. But I wasn't smart enough to take the pictures. 

And here is the finished product. And I like it. 

So what do I have to say about the next projects. I need a break. Really. I am thrilled with the result and am eager to do another one.  Maybe next year as I want to do it in the garage it can get a little colder in the later months. Plus the car wants the garage back. He he. 

So this is my big DIY for this year. This is the reason that I will not be doing the half marathon as I can barely get past 11 km and I have to double that in two weeks. Sigh. But it was worth it. And the kitchen is back in use. 

Love