Old Oak Cabinets from Start to Finished!!!

Yes.. they are finished!!!

If you remember back a couple weeks ago, we found these wonderful old cabinets from the 1920's on Craigslist...

They came out of an old mansion in Fond du Lac, WI.  I was just thrilled to find such a wonderful complete set, and amazingly that space in the middle is right where we have a window on the wall of the kitchen!   We gladly handed over $850 for them, a mere fraction of what NEW cabinets would have cost us.

We hauled them home in brother-in-law Pete's trailer up the highway to our warehouse to work on them.

And I started to work on them... sanding... staining... polyurathaning....

I painted all the interior surfaces with a thick coat of "food safe" paint meant for dairy milk house rooms on farms.  It was a stinky oil-based paint, so I waited till a nice day when I could work in the open doorway.  Not too many days like that in November in Wisconsin, so I really got lucky with 2 days in a row to get this part done.  The fumes gassing off were horrible, but soon they dried to a hard shiny finish.

Soon it was time to start staining! 

 Two coats of polyurathane went on easily.. 

and the wood was just gleaming under my hands! 

I ordered new latches and drawer pulls for the cabinets. 

 I could not find the same shaped replacement hinges in black.  

Instead of buying new ones, Steve ground off the old painted hinge surface for me 

and I re-painted them with Rustoleum's Hammered Metal Paint.

Then I ordered a new copper sink and a tall gooseneck kitchen faucet to match. 

Yesterday I lined all the drawers and shelves with a granite printed contact paper.  Then I screwed on all of the latches, hinges and drawer pulls.  OH MY! It was all coming together!  Steve got here after work and helped me to lift the upper cabinets up onto the bottom base.  For now we set them on the older wooden countertop, but when we install them in the house, we will put on a newer granite patterend countertop of a dark color.

On one of the enclosed sides that will face the wall, I wrote a little message to people of the future who someday may be tearing the house down or removing these "old cabinets" to put in "new ones"  LOL

I can't stand back far enough to get a good complete shot of all the cabinets because they are situated alongside the motorhome in our warehouse for now.  Once they are installed in the new house, I can take a new shot.

You may wonder why I am so crazy gaa-gaa about these cabinets?  Well----

As I have been working on these cabinets, sanding and stripping and wiping ... then staining and wiping again... then sealing and now finally putting on the hardware... I have been thinking.

I identify a lot with these cabinets.

A long time ago, I was battered and bruised just like them.  I was told nobody wanted me and nobody would love me.  That I wasn't worth anything.

I was just like these old cabinets.

The lady selling the cabinets was told by her friends that it was just foolish for her to try to sell them.   The cabinets were junk, no good, ready for the garbage pile. Nobody would want them.

But someone did.

As soon as I saw them advertised on Craigslist, I knew they were for me.  I showed Steve and he agreed.  They needed to be saved, to be loved, to be valued and taken care of, to add new hardware.

Just like Steve...  He saw the good in me, and knew that I had value. He added "new hardware" to my ring finger and made me his wife.  The happiest day of my life.

So last night, as I was putting the final coat of polyurethane on the cabinets, I was enjoying their beauty, their strength, their awesome magnificent appearance.  I stand there between the two upright cabinets, over the place where my sink will go.  I pretend I am looking out my new kitchen window.  I dream of them all set in place in our new home---  surrounding me with the love that I put into them.

Brush On --- Wipe Off ---- AHHHHHHHHHH

Bet you wonder what that title means?  LOL

Right now, I am doing the final "frosting on the cake" ... the fun part of redoing the kitchen cabinets!   After all the work and prep and sanding, now I get to see the glorious wood come alive with STAIN!

We were shopping last week at Fleet Farm (for our food safe paint for the interior of the cabinets) and Steve saw some reddish mahogany colored stain in gallon buckets on clearance.  FIVE BUCKS a gallon!

We weren't sure if it was the right color or not till we could get it home and touch a dab on the backside of a cabinet door.  But we had to decide to buy one gallon (enough for the cabinets) or buy all four gallons because it was such a great deal?   Muphy's Law would cause all the remaining gallons to be bought up by the time we came back for them.

Steve was thinking I was crazy to want to buy all four, but I reasoned with him:

Well, when we rip up the linoleum floor of the kitchen, we are not sure what condition the hardwood flooring is underneath it.  If it needs refinishing, then we will have the extra stain to put on the floor.  All the flooring in the three upstairs bedrooms is this color, and the closet on the main floor is this color, so we are figuring in all probability the kitchen will be same color too.  Steve even pulled up a corner of the dining room carpet to see if there was hardwood in there, and yes, it was and it's the same color.

Thus---  all four gallons were put in our cart, and I am sure happy we did, because it matches what I wanted.

It's a "wiping stain" so it has to be brushed on liberally ... wait 15-20 minutes....

and then wipe it off with a cloth! 

(the flash seems to make them look uneven, but they are all the same) 

Not sure if I am going to do a second coat or not.  Going to look at it in good light today to decide.

I also got some of the smaller cabinet doors done too. 

Got five more doors, 2 bins, 8 drawers and the cabinet frames to work on today.  This is really FUN!



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A day of cabinets

I would first like to say Happy Thanksgiving to all my blog readers... may you have a lovely day surrounded by those you love, giving thanks for all you have been blessed with.  

We are heading down to Milwaukee to spend the day with Steve's family.  110 miles each way on jammed packed highways should be an adventure?   Two of our three kids are coming, along with their spouses and some of the grandtots for me to hug and hold and play with.

Yesterday I got a LOT done on my cabinet project.  If you recall, last week we bought a set of 1920's oak kitchen cabinets that came out of a mansion down in Fond Du Lac.  Here is the seller with the un-restored cabinets.

I have been sanding and removing the latches, hinges and door pulls.  Yesterday I bought some "food safe" paint that is designed for painting milk houses at dairy farms.  Only in Wisconsin can you walk into a store and buy a gallon of paint off the shelf made for this!  LOL

The little flat sticks are made for shelf supports that go in jagged teeth along each side of the upper cabinets.  On each of those sticks goes a shelf plank, that are just made of pine, not oak.  I think I am going to cover each wooden shelf with an old fashioned printed shelf liner. 

This photo below is the main bottom cabinet base, resting on it's back behind the motorhome.  I still have a little more sanding to do on the bottom edge after the paint dries.   We think we are going to omit the drawer section and put in our dishwasher in that space.  I have four more drawers along the bottom of the upper cabinets where they rest on the countertop.  Not sure yet, but Steve is re-figuring the measurements once we get the cabinet base into the house.  It's either that or put the dishwasher in the next section to the right between the drawers and the bins. 

I coated the insides of all of the cabinets and also the two pull out bins.  (I think we are going to use one for taters and onions, the other for a big bag of dog food)    I know nobody really sees the insides of the cabinets once the doors are back on.  But it will be good to start out with fresh clean surfaces for our dishes and food.

The back sides of the cabinet doors were a bit rough, so I stripped off their finish too.  You can see the backsides just to the right of the bins in the pics below.  Then I can stain both sides of each door to look pleasant when open or shut.  If I didn't do the inside surfaces of the doors, I just know every time I would look at them and say to myself: "Dang, why didn't I do the insides when I had the chance?"

While working, I had the door of the workshop area wide open... this paint is oil based and has fumes that are gassing off as the paint cures and hardens.  I worked for about 4 hours and called it a day.  Whew!   I still have to coat a few of box insides of the drawers.   Soon I can start staining the entire set of cabinets, then a few coats of polyurethane  and putting on the new latches, hinges and drawer pulls.

Let's hope this warm weather holds out so I can get these done and cured to a strong finish before we have to move them over to the new house. It's a lot of work, but I think they will be worth it, and be well-fitting for our turn-of-the-century home.

Everyone, please have a safe holiday....  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! 

Sanding Cabinets and a NEW LOOM!

Our lives have been concentrated on getting things ready for the "new-to-us" house.

A few blogs back, I mentioned some super duper 1920's cabinets we bought from Fond Du Lac, WI.  The seller had bought them from a mansion that was being dismantled or redone.  He tried to use them in his house, but they would not work without cutting them apart.  So instead he sold them.   To us!

They do come apart into three big pieces to haul, but he would have had to cut them apart into even smaller parts to work them around his configurations in his kitchen to put them on 2 or 3 different walls. He just couldn't do that to them.

For us, they will work all in one row along one wall.  Even our window is where the opening is.  We might cut out the drawer section and slide over the 2 cabinets on the left to put them under the sink area and fit in a dishwasher on the far left.  Will see once we get them into the house if we need to do that or not.  But most of their integrity will remain intact as much as possible. At least all on one wall.

The weather has been amazingly warm here in Wisconsin.  I started to refinish the cabinets over the weekend.  I was prepared tackle the ugly task of stripping them down by buying stripper, gloves and plastic putty knives.  Steve said this was "my job" because he wanted to get NEW cabinets.  But these are more fitting to the house and style and I fell in love with them.  So I was prepared to work and put effort into refinishing them.

But I also bought a cute little electric sander for $14.   I thought I would try that first.   OH MY!  The old varnish just sanded right off with very little effort!    Amazing how the old stuff crumbled right off.

(door in the foreground is original, and one with the dusting brush is in the sanded down state) 

Here are two of the drawer fronts. It only took about 2 or 3 minutes to get that much done per drawer front. I am just tickled pink at how easy this is going to be to get them ready for new stain to match our woodwork in the house, and then poly coat them to last.

In just a few hours of work, I got all of the drawers done, most of the cabinet doors, and one of the cabinet bases completed.  The four largest doors has some kind of Butcher's Wax or newer coating of varnish on them, so they are taking a bit more work and more sanding pads to get them done.

The sun was shining and I had the big door open of the workshop space and did them out in the open air of the parking lot.  I bought two nice new sawhorses to hold each piece up at working height.  I was happy as a lark, buzzing away that old varnish to reveal the lovely woodwork and grain.  From time to time I would just take off my glasses, mask and gloves...   and feel the smooth clean wood.  Ahhhhhhhh  only a woodwork-loving person would understand that!


Well, our warehouse space is getting quite full!   I am going to finish up the dining chair recovering this afternoon as it's kinda damp, hazy and foggy here today.  No big door open today.

In the middle of all this refinishing and redoing, we are gathering more items and holding them here at the workshop space till the big move the end of next month to the house when we close on the deal.  Glad we have enough room in here, plus it's heated, clean and free of dampness or bugs or mice like some storage spaces.

I have my sewing machine set up on the dining table to work on quilting, my sock knitting machine set up, and have a rug loom ready to weave when I come into the workshop space to get things done.  Gotta have something to keep myself busy during the next 6 weeks of waiting.

Speaking of looms.... well.....  Steve was looking on Craigslist again.....

He found a Newcomb Studio Loom for sale nearby!   We had to go look last night after the Packer Game was over.  Although I have my 2 harness Union Rug Loom, and my 8 harness Tools of the Trade table loom, the only looms I really regret selling off last spring were my 2 Newcomb Studio Looms!

(this is the one he found for me)  

These type of looms are too big to take along in the motorhome, so I sold off the two Newcombs that I had.  They both went to friends where I could buy them back if I wanted to.  But I also knew I could get another one pretty easily as they are common around the midwest.   Lo and behold, this one was in great shape at a great price.   Yes, we dismantled it and packed it in the trunk and back seat of the car in no time flat!

The nicest part of the loom-buying evening was meeting the gal who was selling the loom.  She has a fiber farm and woolen mill processing business, only about 15 miles away from Chilton where we are moving to!   She has a cute little shop with yarns, roving, supplies and finished products. Her farm is called http://www.hiddenvalleyfarmwoolenmill.com   and the BEST part?? She invited me to join their fiber guild!  They have a meeting once a month at her shop, and everyone brings a wheel to spin or a loom or whatever to work on.  How great is that?

We got the loom back to the warehouse and unloaded and stacked in pieces behind the big dining table.  I am not going to go through the effort to set it up, just to dismantle it again in 6 weeks.  Although I would love to get it going right away.  I have the Union loom set up and that can be moved easily through doorways with the removal of just one front beam.   So now I have one of each:  2 harness, 4 harness and 8 harness looms!   Should be all set to move them into my new Loom Room.  It's a large room that faces south with big windows on the main floor.   In the upstairs of the new house, there is a small room that was the maid's quarters,  and that is where I am going to store all my totes and supplies.  It will feel good to have my things within hand's reach instead of running to our son's garage attic in Green Bay for totes of fabric, yarn and supplies.

Thanksgiving is coming up this week.  We are trekking down to Milwaukee area to have a celebration with Steve's family.  Sadly, my ill mom-in-law is not going to be able to attend. Cancer has taken it's toll on her now, and she tires easily.  We will go over there on the weekend to meet up with some of the family to spend a little special time with her.  It is breaking our hearts.

Well, the day is getting on here, and I gotta get some things done...  never a quiet moment around here!