THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF CABINET PAINTING – PART 2

So once again we return to Lowe’s (I know this store ALMOST as well as Home Depot) to get our paint. Besides the fact that regardless of what we need to get the process still takes at least an hour – we manage to get in and out with no major mishaps.

Happily we return home – new shiny metallic colors in hand – ready to embark upon our redecorating journey.

But first we must sand our pockmarked beauties into conformity thereby creating a fine layer of dust that proceeds to cover every square inch of living space we have – all 987 square inches of it! Then we must putty fill all of the cracks and crevices that display their old age – which I might add all of the sudden makes our kitchen seems huge cause it takes hours to do all of this.

So now – armed with our brushes – we can begin to change their colors. Of course this all begins with primer – TWO very labor intensive coats that seem to keep getting sucked into the moisture starved wood. And by this point our VERY helpful felines have begun to see what they can do to make the process go faster.

You see the problem with condo dwelling is that you don’t have many options for separating your living spaces – or your pets – from the rest of the place. So as Puck and Pixie run in and out of the open and empty cabinets they are actually helping to add their own “bodily offerings” (i.e. fur) to the paint. We will later refer to this process as “texturing” and all of our friends will be impressed by our mad skills.

The other thing I should have mentioned is that it is 94 degrees outside and will be this temperature all weekend. Our “workshop” also referred to as “the balcony” (and occasionally “the dining room”, “the reading room” or “the sun room”) gets the lovely afternoon rays so while exercising our arms (paint on – paint off) we can also work on our tans. (Also adding a lot of realism to the term “blood, sweat and tears” as we do have actual sweat and I believe a few tears mixed into our paint.)

So…minutes, hours and days later or in painter’s terms – seven coats of paint later – we achieve success. Well – er – that’s to say that the cabinets are painted.

Of course the doors are still scattered around our abode, the cats still have paint on their little ears and we have been tracking newspaper print all over our floors – but hey – we have painted cabinets.

Mission complete!