Ta-Da!

Folks, I know you have all been waiting with bated breath but the moment has finally arrived... the cabinets are finished! And in my humble opinion, they look pretty awesome. Take a look for yourself at the before and after...

Before


After painting, Before distressing


Up close


And the final after, with some rough sanding on the edges to keep them from looking so new


Up close...


In the pictures it's difficult virtually impossible to see a difference with the distressing, but it did make a big difference.

There was an extra step involved that I did not foresee in the beginning, but Jared pointed out to me. The base that the cabinets is sitting on was white, which just looked silly with the black cabinets. It may not have looked as bad if it was the same color as the baseboards, but they are all painted the same horrible beige that the rest of the walls in our room are painted (Who paints the baseboards and trim the same color as the walls? Previous homeowners, not us!). It's something that someone may have never noticed, but it looks much better than it was before. One of the reasons we have not yet repainted the baseboards is because they are all up against carpet and we weren't quite sure how to deal with the mess of painting without getting the paint on the carpet when the carpet actually touches the baseboards. I did a little googling, and the easiest thing for me seemed to be to put tape on carpet with a little bit of it up touching the baseboard, then shove that excess down between the two. And to prevent any paint splatters that are sure to happen when I'm holding a paint brush, I taped some newspaper down as well.


And I must share with you some of the little tricks I've learned from blog stalking reading some of my favorite frou-frou blogs (listed in the sidebar to the right).

To save time rinsing out the paint brush or roller after every use, wrap it up in saran wrap, stick that in a ziploc, and toss that into the fridge. It keeps the paint from hardening on your brushes and saves a ton of time and mess-making. (I promise I didn't put it amongst the food in the fridge, so you don't have to worry about eating at my house and getting poisoned. Promise!)


To save time rinsing out the paint tray, cover it with aluminum foil. I love short cuts!


And just to tease you a little bit, I'm also working on this little beauty.

We found her at a yard sale for $12. I'll hopefully have her "After" pictures next week!

Edited to add: I have to mention that I did this project all by myself. And I'm not saying that to complain about not getting any help, because I really enjoy doing this sort of thing. But I just want to brag that all the labor was done by yours truly, including the use of the drill! That's right, I used a drill :) I'm like Ty Pennington, only I don't run around topless with a megaphone.