i’m dreaming of a white kitchen::part 3

it’s been a day y’all.

 

let’s start from the beginning shall we?

first it was a dentist appt at 8:00 for my biannual cleaning.  then yet another trip to home depot for more plastic and more sanding blocks.

why more sanding blocks you ask?  one word….gnats.

i went to bed last night so happy.  loving how nice and smooth the finish was on my cabinet doors.  but this morning when i went to check on them, about half of them had teensey little gnats stuck in them.

just kill me now.

here’s the thing… professional painters do their paint spraying is dust free spray booths.  i did mine in the garage.  which is dicey at best.  so my only option was to get my good tweezers and dig them out.  which of course left little gouges.  which of course had to sanded out.  which of course meant i would have to re-spray them.

also on my list today was to spray the base cabinets inside.  and spraying inside means that everything that i didn’t want to be painted eggshell cream has to be taped off.  my house looked like something from ‘the hot zone’.

once i finally got that done, my plan was to put on a light first coat inside, then go back outside to respray the cabinet doors.

except that i couldn’t get the sprayer to work.  i read the book and followed the trouble-shooting instructions….no  luck.  so first i started cursing.  then i called tripp.  and God love him, he (and one of his co-workers) came home on his lunch hour to have a look at the sprayer.

turns out it the spray nozzle was slightly clogged and the sprayer itself had lost prime. whatever that means.

finally though (with tripp’s help) i was back in business.  and i put a first coat on the base cabinets inside the house.

to answer your questions, yes i taped all the cabinets that way.  yes it took forever.  yes i should have bought stock in home depot and 3M.

so with that out of the way, next i went outside to re-spray the cabinet doors.  my thought was to just lightly go over the entire cabinet.  except that it was hot outside and the paint dried too fast and didn’t really level out nicely like it had done yesterday evening. so i got sort of an orange-peel texture.  which is bad.  very, very bad.

i swear you guys.  all i wanted to do was cry.  it was so frustrating to have worked so hard and have it look so good, only to see it all ruined.  my only choice was to re-spray them once again.  which required a second trip to home depot for more paint.

so i get home – it’s about 4:00 now.  my dogs had been locked down in the basement for the better part of the afternoon so i let them out.  go back outside to my cabinets and start re-spraying.  and i turned around to see riley walk right over one of my freshly painted cabinet doors.

God help me.

at this point i had gotten a second coat on most of cabinet doors…the one riley stepped needed to dry so that i could sand it out. so i came back inside to see if my base cabinets were dry. which they were.  but in a few areas, i had sprayed on the paint a little too thick and there were some pretty epic runs and drips.  which were going to have to be sanded. which after the whole cabinet door issue was just so defeating.  so i started crying.  and sanding.  which is where tripp found me when got home from work.

i’m going on record here to say that spraying paint, while very fast and efficient, is not without it’s challenges.  there is the prep of course.  but there’s a certain finesse to getting good coverage without getting lots of runs and drips.  i have a whole new respect for people who do this for a living.

at any rate, after tripp got home, he took at look at my cabinets and he assured me that they were not ruined.  and i was able to smooth out most of the texture problems.  i have a couple left to do…places where i touched to see if they were dry and left a fingerprint.

way. to. go.

this evening i was also able to get a second coat on the base cabinets.  most of the drips and runs leveled out, but i still have a few places that i’ll have to touch up with the brush.

it’s not perfect…if you’re going to perfect, turn right and it’s about two miles south.

at first i was a little bummed out.  it’s not that i really expected this to perfect – not really sure if there is such a thing as a perfect paint job – but i just didn’t want it to look half-ass (although i’m no stranger to doing a half-ass paint job). my hope is that in the end, all these little imperfections won’t be that noticeable….hoping it’s like that thing where we all turn a much more critical eye to our own stuff that others would never see.

for the most part though, i’m pleased with how everything has turned out.  looking forward to hanging the cabinet doors up in a few days…we’re going to let them completely dry and {according to my coatings nerd husband} completely cure out.

so that’s it for tonight friends.  i’m super tired.  i have paint all over my body (and up my nose too i think).  hoping for a fresh start tomorrow!

love, kelly