Spring Break projects

Since we ran out of money, our spring break plans were a no go.  I decided to make a giant list of things that needed to be done around the house.

1.  Paint John's old childhood cabinet to put in utility room-I did this using paint leftover from the house and tied it to the colors I just did in the utility room.

2.  Redo the shelves and paint the dryer pipe-I used red spray paint on the pipe, and scrapbook paper on the shelves.

3.  Make a message board for family-I used an old frame from Grandma's house.  Inserted scrapbook paper where you normally put a photo.  Got some dry erase markers and some flowers.  Put it all together and wow a message board.

4.  Make new curtains for kitchen-I found some great fabric in Indianapolis at Wal-mart.  One was $1 per yard the other $3 per yard

5.  Install new kitchen sink-proved to be more difficult than we thought because the people we bought our house from (the flippers as I call them) cut the hole out themselves.  It was not straight and it was odd shaped....that may be why they used a mobile home sink (you can have one of these free in my garage).  It was a 5 inch deep double pan sink, and I have hated it every day for 7.5 years.  Now I have a 8.5 inch deep sink!

6.  For my birthday last year, I bought the lumber and my dad donated his skills to build me some bookcases.  That was last July, and I was just now painting them.

7.  Paint the back door-I wanted to paint the inside of the panels on the door leading to the garage.  I also wanted to paint a saying on there.

8.  Paint kitchen trashcan-we had the nastiest can in the world.  A blue can that they sell at Wal-mart.  (why do they make all the cans blue or white and just nasty?)  I painted it with Rustoleum black paint for plastics.  It is like a new can and fits the color scheme of my room.

9.  Use the left over transformation kit and paint the bath cabinet


Hope you enjoy the photos of my week of projects.  

Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations

Our house was built around 1967 and the cabinets in the home have never been repainted and frankly I don't think anything has ever been done to them since the day they were installed.  I was fed up!  Check out the before pictures and you will see exactly how bad the cabinets looked.  They also had another problem that you didn't see, if you closed them you would have to lift on the doors to make them fit.  The cabinets hung loose and were just plain pitiful.  

My first thing had to be to number the doors. Since they are custom made every door is a different size and I thought numbering them would be easier for me. I first labeled with masking tape and as I took down the door I wrote the number on the side of the door that does not show when hung.  For the top cabinets it was the top edge and the bottom it was the bottom edge. 

I then took off all the doors, cleaned the hinges (I was saving them) and filled every single hole where a door was attached to the cabinet base.  This step was long and messy, but my intention was to hang these doors as if the cabinet base was new and then I would have a tight fit with no sagging doors.  Then came the kit......

The first three photos are the before photos

I had enough left over to do our pantry cabinet.  The before is on the left, it was sponged a combo of our kitchen colors and the right is the after, looks nice doesn't it?  I am pleased with everything, the ease of use, the actual product, everything.

The bottom cabinets are finished, the top cabinet are in two different stages.  The part of the cabinets on the left is being transformed, the ones on the right are the original cabinet finish.

Look at the difference in finished and the old way

New hardware pulls in the look.  Hardware was $70 at Lowe's for 12 drawer pulls and 22 knobs

The finished project.  Next we got a new stove (not pictured) and I am working on a new curtain.  Counter tops will happen in the spring.