I know what you’re going to say once you start reading this – “Aren’t those people ever gonna finish that kitchen?”

That, my dear friends, is exactly what I ask myself, sometimes multiple times per day.

We’ve got to cut Smuffy some slack, though.  After coming home from his day job, he tackles everything else that pops up (or falls down, as the case may be) with this seventy+ year old house.  There’s all the yard work, the garden and how a huge outdoor project he’s had to undertake.  My “new” kitchen goes forward in spurts and I try to have patience.  I will admit to having tears, though.  Every once in a while, the whole thing about having a toddler here every day with no cabinet doors gets to be a bit much.  Careful placement and a good boy are all that stand between us and disaster.

Well, the doors have arrived!  I’d do the happy dance, but they’re not up yet.  You see, they’ve been handed over to me.  Yikes!

I’ve done a lot of DIY in my time, so I had a hard time figuring out why these made me so nervous.  Then, I realized where my jitters were coming from.

It’s one thing to drag something home from a yard sale or resale shop and dive in to give it a whole new life.  It is quite another to take brand new things that Smuffy has poured blood, sweat and tears into and risk screwing it up!  As I said in an earlier post, most people who say they did their whole kitchen makeover by themselves have few bragging rights compared to what we’ve undertaken on this project.  Ripping out things, bringing home new cabinets and installing them and then slapping on some trim pales in comparison to what we’ve done.  It’s been me with my sheets of graph paper and research and Smuffy painstakingly hand-crafting each and every cabinet, pull-out, replacing windows, framing in new ones, building the pantry and making all the shelves to my specifications.  It’s been a long, long road and each interruption and setback has been tough. 

Now, Smuffy has handed me his beautiful cabinet doors and it’s turned me into a big chicken.  My design all along (I tell him that at all times he must remember that he’s Chip and I’m JoJo), was to have antiqued creamy cabinets.  I went to great lengths to get just the right paints, additives, glazes and colors to achieve the end look.  I did all right through two coats of primer.  I did all right through two coats of paint.  Then, somehow, as soon as I got ready to antique them, nerves kicked in.  How could I ugly up Smuffy’s beautiful doors?

It was all I could do to go down to the basement and smear the glaze over the perfection and start wiping it around with old rags over that pristine first door.  It was as though I kept forgetting that the  installed cabinets upstairs had already been antiqued and it was too late to turn back now.  Duh!

There are reasons I chose antiquing.  So many kitchens are what I call “hospital white”.  I hope it’s a trend that ends soon.  Sometimes I think way too many folks out there are working in labs or schoolrooms or medical offices and this look is seeping into their souls.  Anyhow, I didn’t want that.  I wanted homey.  I have a working kitchen – a really working kitchen.  With homecooked healthy meals every single day and all the prep for cooking demonstrations at the classes I teach, it would be hard to keep a sleek kitchen looking sleek all the time.  Also, I have some things of my mom’s I’d like to use to decorate my open shelving and they’re just pretty shabby and farmy.  In honor of her, I’m calling this my Emmabelle Kitchen.

As you can see in the photo, I went ahead with Door #2 and then I started to calm down. In game shows, there is something behind the door to jump up and down about.  In my case, I’ll just have to wait a while longer.  Smuffy keeps assuring me we are in the home stretch.  I nod and sniffle.  The home stretch is every bit as exhausting as the rest of this turtle race.

Just in case you’re wondering, Smuffy’s masterpieces are finished off with two coats of Benjamin Moore primer, have had a light sanding and received two coats of Benamin Moore trim paint in “Fresh Narcissus” with Floetrol added.  This additive makes all the brush strokes or roller marks “melt” away.  The antiquing is done by taking eight parts Benjamin Moore Studio Finish Acrylic Glaze and adding one part Benjamin Moore satin finish paint in “Devonwood Taupe.  This is wiped on and then off immediately with cotton rags, leaving accents in the wood details.  Two coats of Benjamin Moore polyurethane are added after glazing to restore the hard finish.  Otherwise, the glaze would remain too “soft” for durable cabinetry.

I must add that in this photo, the antiqued door looks like it has much more antiquing on it that it does in actuality.  There’s no explaining why photos do that sometimes.

Smuffy does more than just build things.  My Life With Smuffy page is loaded with stories that will make you laugh, cause your hair to stand on end and probably bump us up to the top of your prayer list!

The kitchen makeover chronicles include my embarrassing “before” photos in “Death of a Kitchen”.  After that, you can catch up with “A Glimmer of Hope and Stainless Steel”, “Birth Pains of a Kitchen”, “My Not-A-Kitchen Kitchen”, “A Trim Healthy Pantry and Some Plywood” and “Transition of a Kitchen”.  Check those out and you’ll be ready for the next and, hopefully, final stages of my kitchen.

Leave a comment!  What do you like/don’t like in your kitchen?  Or, have you seen something online or in someone else’s kitchen that you’d like to have if you could remodel your kitchen?  My kitchen is small.  Give me your best storage tips and tricks!