Man, it sure feels good to be back! Hi, all! It’s been a hot minute since I last dropped in…actually, after looking back, it’s been about a month (!), which I’m not really sure how time flew past that quickly. I didn’t fully intend to leave you hanging for that long, but we’ve been doing lots of fun things (successfully fulfilling my year of fun) and also have been extremely busy (as you may have guessed from the title of this post)!

With fall here and routines and schedules back in place, I may try to get to posting more regularly around here. Although, it certainly has been feeling a lot like summer this past weekend. I don’t know how to react. I’m sitting outside as I type this in shorts and a t-shirt, however, inside I have a pumpkin spice candle going and a basket of freshly picked apples on the counter…I’m still clinging on to summer, yet am so ready for all things fall at the same time.

Anyway, let me fill you in on our fun summer adventures before getting to what I’m most excited to share…because these kitchen cabinets were a labor of love! Emphasis on the labor part of that sentence. :) 

We had a fun-packed weekend with Philip’s parents when they came into town to visit. From our annual trip to see an outdoor play at the American Player’s Theatre to going to House on the Rock and the Wollersheim Winery, we packed a lot into a short 2 day trip.

During our weekend of kitchen chaos, we took a break for me to do my last triathlon of the season. I must have been eager to get back to the cabinets because I had a great tri and ended up medaling for my age division.

That brings us to last weekend when we made our first trip to Door County. With busy work schedules and a seemingly never ending kitchen project, it was a much needed getaway weekend for us. Even though we wanted to stay at home to completely cross the kitchen cabinets off of our to-do list, our reservations at the quaint bed and breakfast in downtown Sturgeon Bay forced us to put aside work for the weekend and just relax. And I’m so glad it did! We toured around Sturgeon Bay, went to two state parks in one day, and rode our bikes along the water front and countryside of Door County in the Door County Century Ride on Sunday. We decided we will definitely be coming back to Door County again and making it a tradition…if for no other reason than to force us to slow down. Because we all need help with that occasionally. :)

Speaking of slowing down, let’s talk about this kitchen update we just finished! If you remember, we actually did a kitchen update last fall/winter when we (re: hired someone) tiled our backsplash and put in granite countertops. It looked immensely better than what it did before, but it just didn’t seem completely finished.

I should mention that when ideas pop into my head, they have a tendency to stay there and not go away (I’m sure Philip is thrilled by this…). For whatever reason, in August I decided our kitchen would look a lot better if the cabinets were painted. Fast forward a month and we were painting our kitchen cabinets. :) It was technically “my” project, but Philip was great and helped me out a ton. I was able to prep a lot while he was gone for a week for a work trip, but he jumped right in when he came back and I couldn’t have done it without him. (Thanks, babe!)

So, take a look and see our completed kitchen. Yes, we did it ourselves, but I’m not a DIY blogger and I’m not going to pretend that I am. So, no directions on how I did it here. There are so many blogs out there that explain the process a lot better than I would or could (I used several different blogs and websites to compile ideas and to start to understand what the heck I was doing, but then went and kind of did my own thing anyway :) ). I’ve listed the products I used at the end of this post just in case you’re wondering. Other than that, it was basically just a lot of time and steps to get the project done. But, now that it’s done, I’m so glad we went ahead and did it. We both love it and it totally gives the kitchen a new look!

Supplies:

• TSP Substitute: Used this to clean the cabinets and box frames and get rid of any built up grease. Rinsed with a water/vinegar solution.
• Deglosser: Used this as a sanding replacement. It took off the gloss and shine of the cabinets so the primer could stick to them.
• Primer: Painted a thin coat onto everything. Just painted one coat of the primer.
• Paint: We used the color “Welded Iron” for the bottom cabinets and “Dutch White” for the upper cabinets. We painted two coats on everything with a light sand in between coats, if needed.
• Cup Pulls: We got new handles for the drawers to complete the new look. We had to match the size of the previous handles, so I found these online that I really liked.