Day number 3 at the house saw us painting and sheetrocking. A lot. The kitchen walls needed boarding and we installed cementboard where there will eventually be backsplash. The old dining room walls needed a skimcoat. Or a thick-coat, as it turned out. And the cabinet hardware needed some intervention.
Here's the old hardware - big scrolly colonial-looking things went on the drawers, and knobs went on everything else. I thought about reusing them, but here's the thing about knobs. They need to be comfortable. These knobs had hollow backs, so every time you put your grubby little paws around them, the edges sank into your fingers. Great if you want some aversive pain stimulus to thwart your midnight snacking, not-so-great if you just want to freaking open a cupboard already.
The hinges, however...the hinges we will reuse. Hinges are MAD expensive!
After a couple light coats of Rustoleum Oil-Rubbed Bronze, they are not bad. They have a kind of French Country look to them, right? Yes?
So here is it. Old, strange-colored brass hardware out, matte oil-rubbed bronze in.
Next up, painting cabinets. I am ridiculously anal about painting things, and wanted these to have a shiny-smooth factory finish. We used Behr Porch and Patio paint in a high-gloss finish and went with a warm white (billowing clouds) to brighten things up while not making things seems too stark. I wanted to spray them, but the paint was too thick and kept gumming up the sprayers, so I bought a plain old foam roller and went for it. I rolled the whole door and then went over it in very light, even strokes before setting it aside to dry.
A note to any future cabinet-painters. Don't forget to paint the bottoms of your uppers. We remembered this at the very end of Day 3, and thank god we did, because Michelangelo I am not, and painting them in place would have SUCKED.
Meanwhile, back inside, my dad and his friend were installing the new can lights. The old kitchen was so dark, we wanted as much light as possible, so this was an easy solution.
Once the sheetrock was up, we could really see the difference. And by the way. The new, 'ultralight' sheetrock? The one emblazoned with text about how light it is and how you can check out the difference at theweighthasbeenlifted.com? Still heavy as hell. (I didn't check out their website - if anyone does, let me know. I anticipate it is all sorts of Amazing and Awesome.)
But. There always seems to be a 'but' with sheetrock, doesn't there? But. There were some unavoidable butt-end seams, one on the ceiling, and two on the walls where the edges met the old dining room walls. These seams were to be the bane of my dad's and Michael's existence for the next week. Much, much joint compound was used in the crafting of these walls.
Here she is, all boarded and compounded, and set out to dry.
It begins to look like a real, live room.
(I'm also playing around with a watermark for the blog. Not sure how I feel about it yet, but there you go.)
Happy Monday!
all photos, mine
No comments:
Post a Comment