nodirthere's Kitchen

Before/after pictures - oak to cream/glazed

Contact: nodirthere (My Page)
Posted on Tue, Feb 5, 08
Link to kitchen photos: http://www.photobucket.com/albums/gg27/nodirthere/

Details:

• Cabinets: original oak, painted and glazed (see instructions below)
  
• Countertops: Uba Tuba granite -ogee edge.
  I am so glad I did the slight arch on the island and little scallop in- last minute idea and it really made a difference.
  
• Backsplash: acid washed tumbled travertine. The embossed tiles under mw and repeated under the glass cabinets were from Home Depot and ceramic -very inexpensive $3. They even have light switch covers that match the travertine there.
  
• GE Cafe slide in
• Lighting above and below cabinets are those little round halogen lights from HD.

We re-did our standard builder's grade oak. Re-used all the cabinets we had, filled the wood grain, painted and glazed-cut out the inside and put some glass. I actually had a painter paint and I did the glazing. We redid this for under $9500! That includes the granite, but not the new appliances. We recessed the "ovenwall" 1 foot-and added the foot to the island overhang for more stools and put the GE Cafe slide in where the gas cooktop was. A much more functioning spot and added much needed stool space
In full disclosure,my painter did everything but the glazing and design work and leg work- he did a fabulous job achieving the result I wanted. I wanted a more French country feel and did not want to see the oak grain at all. (I felt that would look less elegant and more rustic.)

This was the process on the cabinet doors (taken off)-product sprayed on unless otherwise noted:

1. coat of Insl-x STIX Primer
2. Spackled smooth coat of MH Ready patch by Zinsser (this was after an attempt w/a wood filler that proved to not fill the grain as much as I wanted- I wanted a piano finish, I'm sure there is something out there that would be easier, and there are lots of fillers we found, but they would not fill ALL the grain, so we went right to the MH.)
3. Sanded w/hand sander -start out bigger grit end end w/fine-(120)
4. Coat of Insl-x Stix Primer (this stuff really works)
5. 2-3 coats of Benjamin Moore Satin Impervo-
   Custom color Formula:
   Pastel base 314-1B-1
   oy-31
   bk-7
   og-6
6. Hand glaze-Custom color Benjamin Moore Glaze
   base-409-00-4
   bk-6
   Br-4
   og-3
   oy-14
   wh-12
   

I used medium size sponge brushes and lots of paper towels-(use Viva -all the difference in the world!)- you could use cotton rags, but I found the viva was the easiest in keeping the rest of the cabinet clean by changing them out frequently.
There were so many coats of stuff that it made my corners less than 45 degrees and difficult to wipe the glaze on then wipe off leaving the glaze in the edge of cabinet trim. I had to create the line by painting it on w/pointy sponge tips and dragging it along the line. This is kind of hard to explain-think of when you are caulking and go back and smooth it out and the caulk stays in the corner of your line w/ a nice finish on the outside- same thing-I ran into problems when the corners got filled w/too much coatings and had to "create" the line- our else I would go back and wipe the whole line off.
Hope I'm explaining this ok-I did try brushes but found it easier to drag the glaze than brush it- I kept thinking there had to be a better way, but never did find one (it was about 45 min each cabinet). I only did the trim corners- I did not do the whole cabinet w/ a washed glaze effect- I have seen it but didn't think I wanted that much "aging" -and wasn't THAT confident in my abilities.

Other details-
All trim work was hardwood not oak, since we were painting it anyway-saved lots of $ w/ that. The "table legs" on the island are actually newall post for stairs sold at minards for $30, w/the ball cut off the top- hugely cheeper than buying an island leg!
The corner spindles are actually $12 wall corner guards from Minards and Home Depot. Wasn't sure about them and haven't glazed them yet because of that-now I'm just getting use to them. Filled in the difference between bead board and corner w/spackle-smoothed it out.
Beadboard just the big sheets-tried glazing it but just looked way too "stripey" and wanted to minimize the country look so left it alone.

Base trim- hemmed and hawed getting rid of the toe kick-especially w/ cream cabs- but so glad I did -all for that furniture look.
Glass cabinets were the cabinets above the wall oven-cut out the inside- had my local glass cutter fit some glass to the frame- glass shelf for inside cabinet. Cut 1 foot off the depth of the floor cabinets and reattached to the wall- lost the drawers.

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- posted by starpooh @ 7:56 PM