THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF CABINET PAINTING - PART ONE

So there we sat staring at our ugly kitchen cabinets. They seemed to make the rest of the kitchen sad – just sitting there with their dull, pocked brown wooden coats. There was our new kitchen counter looking perky with its fauxed-granite goodness, and our stainless steel appliances looking very industrial and strong, and the shiny metal of the stainless steel sink (deep enough to rinse a dish in!) and goose-necked faucet gleaming to perfection and the brand new brushed nickel track lights that made you think gourmet chef. (Hey – I can boil noodles!)

And those cabinets. Ugh. They have these tarnished brass fixtures that look like they were forged by some crack addicted medieval metal smith. Oh – but not the cool kind of medieval look. No – these are the 70’s revival look that best complimented double-wide mobile homes. (Which begs the question – exactly how mobile is a double- or even triple-wide mobile home? But I digress…)

Very sad these cabinets are. So off to the internet we trekked to find out about cabinet refacing. Very costly. I can get NEW cabinets for that price!

Did I mention that I can touch the entire kitchen from one spot?

Then we trudged to Ikea to pick up a groovy catalog with little kitchen cutouts of how you would like your cabinets to be. I could have a pantry! I could have fun colors with glass doors! I could be a hip suburban kitchen dweller! I don’t have $5,000!

Sigh.

I know! We can paint them!! We can have an entirely new kitchen for only $200!

So – off we trudged to Lowe’s for paint. As we stood in line with our very hip metallic paint chips (hey we only need to clean and primer the cabinets and put on a two coat process – how hard could this be?) I flipped through a kitchen upgrade magazine and approached the paint clerk nursing a full-on case of kitchen envy.

Of course, if we paint the cabinets we have to get new hinges – right. (I mean we can’t use the odd forged brass that accompanied the blindness inducing fixtures – right?) And now we need a “touch-sensor” dimmer switch for our groovy new lights. And a….

Oh yeah – paint. They’re out of our colors. We have to come back next week.