Kitchen Make-Over

A week or so ago Rich started sanding the cabinets so we could stain them. We have been talking about doing it for several months but just haven't done it, Jennifer gave us a can of stain a long time ago so it was supposed to be a really cheap kitchen make-over. His sister has a friend that did it and they said it was really easy and just took an afternoon to do. Well he started sanding one evening and then put on a "test coat" of the stain to see what it would look like and it just rubbed right off. He decided that he needed to sand them more but wasn't very excited about it because it is a pain in the butt and he was making a HUGE mess all over everything in the kitchen.
Here is what the cabinets looked like before and lightly sanded. They are pine and really light and they look like really cheap cabinets. We have talked about doing something to them since we moved in 3 1/2 yrs ago.

Well we figured that we needed to remove the lacquer from the finish so the stain would take. He went and bought lacquer thinner and set to work again. This time he had to work really hard to get the lacquer off and thought there is no way I am doing this to all of these cupboards. He was frustrated and I was not happy with him for starting the project in the first place. I told him to talk to his sister and have her find out exactly what these people did that was "so easy."
He went over to the lady's house and she gave him all the instructions. After another trip to Home Depot armed with all the right stuff he set off once again to get our kitchen back in working order. What was supposed to be a "free" upgrade ended up costing about $75 but it was WELL WORTH IT!!

 

He finished lightly sanding all the cabinets and the island. He then rubbed "spirits" on all the surfaces that were to be stained. Next he applied a "gel stain" that is where we went wrong the first time. To finish it off you apply several coats of lacquer. It took him 2 days to sand and stain and then he got the first coat of lacquer on. We didn't eat dinner at our house for 2 days because we had such a big mess but he did such a great job and I love how they look!!!

The pictures look OK but to really see how great it looks you need to come by. It was a fairly easy project once we got all the information and the right stuff. He worked really hard on this project and it turned out better than either one of us imagined. If you need a quick make-over for your kitchen give it a try or better yet, hire Rich to do it...he is out of work you know!!!