A big change

With all the help around here this past weekend, as well as some excellent naps on Annie's part, some significant progress has been made in the kitchen. The doors and cabinet boxes are well on their way to being completed, and the countertops should be coming this week! The big change of plans, though, is that instead of a shiny rich walnut stain, our cabinets look like this:

That's because after weeks of intense sanding, hours of wood conditioning and wiping down dust, we applied the first layer of stain to the cabinet boxes...and it was awful. I got so nervous as I tiptoed into the garage to find Bryan, sanding away, and said "Honey, you have to come look at this. Please don't be mad. But I hate them."

I think the wood used to make our cabinets was just too hard to accept the stain properly. The finish was totally splotchy and gross. Different pieces of wood turned different colors. I knew that, if we went through with staining everything, I would despise my kitchen. And for all the  hard work we had already put in, it didn't take us more than a minute to decide that switching gears was the right decision.

So the next morning, we packed up our unopened jars of stain and poly, and headed to the returns counter at Home Depot. A quick stop at Benjamin Moore later, and we had a gallon of primer and another gallon of paint ordered and on its way. I opened that primer can as soon as we got home and started to cover up my mess. It was like a breath of fresh air-- and I knew immediately that I was going to love my new white cabinets.

Do I hate myself for the week I spent painting the inside of the cabinets to match the would-be stain? Not really. I certainly don't dislike it enough to spend another week making them white inside. And I'm so thankful we caught ourselves in time to change gears before things really got ugly.

So now we're up to speed-- everything primed and ready for it's first coat of greyed-down white goodness. Cabinet hardware in the mail. Countertops set to install soon. And keeping our eyes on the prize!