The Cabinet Project

So I decided to take it upon myself to refinish my cabinets. I thought I had it in me… I still sort of do. I started here:

Stripping all the varnish off on a Saturday with Lauren’s help:

That took much longer than I thought and it was cold. Only 50 degrees. My hands were numb or so I thought.

Then there were days and nights of sanding (again Lauren helped!):

And then there was the prestaining to help the stain soak in evenly later:

And then first coat of real stain:

And progress

And then things went bad by coat 3:

All the areas where the old orange-ish stain wouldn’t come out of the wood, now shows through the dark stain. It wouldn’t let anymore stain soak into it by this point and started getting blotchy. I never did do the fronts of the cabinets with a 3rd coat after I saw the results of the backs of the cabinets.

So now I’m starting over, sanding to prepare for PAINT!:

I went to Sherwin Williams and picked up a primer/sealer to paint over the stain with and a nice dark mahogany paint. Hopefully it will be complete in 2 more weeks… we will see.