Custom Kitchen Cabinets

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 7 of ?):  Playing “Let’s Make a Choice!”

~ Midwest Storyteller ~ 3 Comments

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.

Cabinet Doors Before and After www.midweststoryteller.com

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!

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 3 of ?): “Birth Pains of a Kitchen”

~ Midwest Storyteller

I promised to keep you posted on Smuffy’s monumental project.  Welcome to the third and hopefully, most painful, installment.  It’s a little late in posting as the clogged internet has been refusing to put photos in my posts.

Earlier, in “A Glimmer of Hope and Stainless Steel”, I shared the little chunk of the project that propelled me forward into the world of a glorious new refrigerator, wall oven and fancy-schmancy dishwasher.  After that, we took time out for Thanksgiving, Christmas and to become grandparents.  Smuffy then entered another busy season with his business while it was way too cold to be in the workshop messing with wood.  Now, at last, we are making progress again! 

If you’d like to see my embarrassing kitchen “before” photos, click here, but read the whole post so you’ll have a little compassion.

Have you ever had one of those uneasy feelings – as though you’re being followed by a mysterious “something”?  Your Pollyanna nature tries to reassure you that you’ll never have to turn and face it and that it is probably just a series of spooky shadows, but eventually, you round a corner and there it is – the “thing” you knew was there but dreaded meeting face to face.  Trying to duck your head and peer at it through only one squinting eye doesn’t help.  We’ll, sooner or later it happens to us all and it has happened to me.

Smuffy is a marvel when it comes to undertaking almost any project, but he’s a numbers kinda guy and likes things in columns and rows.  Nuance and the artistic sense elude him in some instances, though he does have appreciation for it.  For some time, even though I’d labored over the perfect off-white paint for my cabinetry and the antiquing glaze that would go on over it followed by a couple of coats of polyurethane, I’d been deluding myself into thinking Smuffy would be the painter of these glorious creations.  I should have known.  Full of the can-do spirit he is – gifted with an artist’s touch he is not.

He got the primer on and the first coat of paint and asked me to inspect.  I murmured a prayer and did so.  Difficult as it was to declare them a tad crummy, I forced myself to be honest.  It was mere practice as I then pushed past my lips the notion that perhaps I needed to paint these myself.  (Though painfully slow, I am neat as a pin.)  Smuffy’s eyes lit up and he rushed to hand me the paint buckets and all the rest of the supplies.  I’d known, deep in my heart that Smuffy’s painting style and choice of tools, while fast and thorough, might not produce the results I desired.  He’s an expert at detail work, just not this particular kind. That lurking instinct had caught up with me and how here I was, holding the brush, the mini roller and newly sanded face frames, shaking my head, groaning a little, but not surprised that I hadn’t managed to outrun this dreaded task.

Antique Glazing www.midweststoryteller.com

First I used a Benjamin Moore trim paint in Fresh Narcissus with Floe-trol (from Home Depot) added to make the finish smooth as buttah.  After letting each coat of this dry overnight, I mixed one part paint in a Benjamin Moore Devonwood Taupe into 8 parts clear latex glaze.  I brushed this on and wiped it away with lint-free rags.  It doesn’t appear too impressive here on the face frames, but will show nicely on the finished cabinet doors where it will collect in the grooves of the panels and give definition.  Once this dried overnight, I applied two coats of clear polyurethane, allowing each to dry overnight.  This is because the antiquing glaze is not as hard as trim paint and will wear off if not sealed in between the layers.

Once ready, we started Demo Day for the lower half of the kitchen.  In order to have some functionality, we opted to complete this phase and tackle the upper portion once we can actually cook and have water again.

Chaos reigned.  Smuffy ripped and tore.  I shoved, shifted and fetched.  Phoebe June, caught in the cross-fire, opted to enjoy the exploration opportunity of a lifetime.  When cabinets, bags and boxes filled with the kitchen cabinet contents began filling every room on the main floor, she considered all rules null and void and flung herself into the spirit of the thing with wild abandon, jumping into bags of canned goods and strolling through utensil drawers.  After a while, I just shrugged and made myself a mental note that it could all be washed and wiped down later.  To say she was wide-eyed with excitement would be an understatement.

Wide-eyed Phoebe June midweststoryteller.com

By the end of Day 1, we had uglified the kitchen to the point where we were committed to completion whether we liked it or not and as I looked around the house for a bright spot, I found myself thankful that our little grandson has yet to reach the walking stage.  I have a feeling he’d make Phoebe June’s escapades seem like nothing at all!

Demo Day 1 midweststoryteller.com

With the lower cabinets in place, we’ll now attached the face frames and anchor everything in place so that Smuffy can begin the process of installing his beautiful walnut countertops and the oak furniture piece that will serve as our sink base.  Oh, to have water again!

I’m going to leave you hanging there and end this special episode of my Life With Smuffy. Coming up soon, I’ll give you a peek at my “not a kitchen kitchen” that will have to serve until the counters, sink and gas cooktop are installed.  I’m hoping that is very soon!

(After writing this post and struggling to get the photos inserted, we hit some snags. I’ve had to give up my design for the oak furniture piece and I may be having to part with my walnut countertops. I must confess to having two or three mid-remodel meltdowns already. I’d love to think this is the last of them, but… old houses are full of surprises and unless you open up a wall and find a chest full of gold and jewels, they are never really good surprises.)

If you’re not all caught up on the latest Smuffy episodes, check out, “A Studebaker in the Hands…”  and “Why Stop When You’re on a Roll?”  His river adventures here and here will having you longing for summer days on the water – or maybe not.

I’d love to have your input on a kitchen remodel?  What one mistake have you made that you’d like to un-do?  What feature of your new kitchen do you love the most?  Please comment! I need all the encouragement I can get.

Life with Smuffy (Special Episode – Part 1 of ?): “Death of a Kitchen”

~ Midwest Storyteller ~ 8 Comments

Smuffy, that love of my life, has been immersed in a vast project for quite some time now and I thought it might be time to share.  As always, when he dives into these endeavors, I am thankful if he can manage to keep his body intact amid the whir of power tools.  So far – so good.  I don’t like to think of his angels nappin’.

My kitchen was adorable.  Let me see, that was…take the year Pookie was born…add two…add a couple more months plus time out for the flu…carry the one…and, Yep!  My kitchen was adorable and up to date in…1986. It was all done out in wheat speckled wallpaper and bordered in what looked like quilted chickens. Really.

Now, lest you think I just left it to decay, I have given it a spot of paint here and there, a change of wallpaper and various window treatments since.  It may have had a couple of new microwaves along the way, a different refrigerator and a replacement dishwasher, but all those old stuck windows, clunky cabinets and poor layout remained.

A couple of years ago, the oven died.  Smuffy smiled at me.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting me to get you a new stove.”

“No,” I said, trying to be gentle.  “I’ll be wanting you to get me a new kitchen.”

Smuffy has proven himself over the years to be a man who can do anything.  I hated to see him wear himself to a frazzle, but I knew he’d insist on doing the whole thing himself.

For the past several years, I hadn’t done any updates at all.  It seemed like a waste of time and energy on something that needed a complete overhaul.  Though it embarrasses me to show the state of decline, here we go.  After all, we’ll be even more impressed with the “afters” if we’ve seen the “befores”, won’t we?

Kitchen Before www.midweststoryteller.com

Still trying to hold my head up after showing you that.

Don’t get in a hurry to see the “after” photos.  I’m going to let you peek into the process as it unfolds.  Smuffy works on custom cabinetry and all the other aspects of the remodel every chance he gets in the midst of his busy work schedule.

As I said, the oven passed on a couple of years ago.  I pulled out the graph paper and began work on my if-not-larger-then-super-efficient dream kitchen and I stressed the concept of “Me, JoJo – You, Chip” in this fixer-upper and have been pleasantly surprised to find Smuffy 95% cooperative with all my unique designs. 

We began shopping for new appliances.  Since I wanted a wall oven and we had no wall yet to put it on, we brought it home to our basement and Smuffy ratchet-strapped it to his workbench.

That, folks, is when everything went south.  This would be the longest blog post in history if I paused here to tell of every interference, delay and situation that sprang up to derail this remodel.  Suffice it to say that I am getting mighty tired of carrying sloppy pies down and hot lasagnas up.  Still no kitchen.

Progress has been made along the way!  Let’s take a look –

Kitchen Walnut for Countertops www.midweststoryteller.com

Leave it to Smuffy to go all out.  Hearing of a downed walnut tree several years back, he couldn’t leave it just lying there in the forest.  With permission, Smuffy hauled it home, had it cut into planks and as you see here, he now has it planed and ready to install as my new countertops.  Click here to see the inspiration photo that got me started with my kitchen design and you’ll have an idea where we’re headed with this.

Here he is, when he began building base cabinets.  I’m thrilled with all the deep drawers that glide along on their soft-close hardware. 

Building Base Cabinets www.midweststoryteller.com

Since the demise of the oven, it has seemed that the rest of the kitchen has lost the will to go on.  The burners on the stove have taken to whimsy, choosing their own heat settings without regard to how we adjust the knobs even to the point of desiring to stay on when we turn them off.  The dishwasher began to dislodge some of its more minor parts and finally, a couple of weeks ago, developed a funny smell, shorted out and stopped entirely.  A few days later the microwave stopped in mid-nuke to let us know that it had joined its comrades in their march to the appliance cemetery. 

This is when I started to sigh every fifteen seconds or so.  The next decision I need to make is whether to use regular silver-gray (like stainless steel, right?) or floral duct tape on the refrigerator door handle.

Meanwhile, we inch forward.  Saturday we had Demo Day Phase 1.  The dishwasher went into its new cabinet over the weekend and it is a fabulous thing with its third rack, bottle jets and all the bells and whistles.

Phase 1: Dishwasher www.midweststoryteller.com

While I wait, I’m cooking lots of wholesome meals for my contractor and trying not to sigh more often than necessary.  Since I am going to use my mom’s authentic farmhouse décor, I grabbed my chalk markers and brightened up my kitchen chalkboard with this –

Smuffy Built Sign www.midweststoryteller.com

I’ll keep you posted with updates as we go along and, eventually, those glorious “after” photos!

That’s it for Part 1 of this special episode of my Life With Smuffy. Let’s all say a prayer that this tale of kitchen remodel doesn’t become as “exciting” as some of his other adventures.  At least I can be glad my house is not on wheels.  If you’re all caught up on the latest Smuffy episodes, then, Dear Reader, you know what I mean.  If not, check out, “A Studebaker in the Hands…”  and “Why Stop When You’re on a Roll?”  His river adventures here and here will having you longing for summer days on the water – or maybe not.

Do you have advice and ideas on a kitchen remodel?  What one mistake have you made that you’d like to un-do?  What feature of your new kitchen do you love the most?  I’d love to hear from you.  Please leave a comment!