Old Mother Hubbard gets a makeover

Meet Old Mother Hubbard, the only completely original cabinet remaining in our century-old kitchen.

She’s a cold pantry—the kind with screen shelves and outside vents to keep things cool.  Her vents have long since been covered up and the cooling work has been done by a refrigerator for decades … but she’s still a pantry, and I don’t know what I’d do without her. Of course, with the kitchen renovation, she is getting a makeover. It’s the least I can do to show my appreciation.

Poor old Mother Hubbard’s no longer in the shape she used to be. Countless coats of paint over the years have rendered her doors too bulky to shut properly. And inside—well, you can see she could use some nutritional counseling and a good cleansing purge. Some of her innards are out of date, too.

See that little red, white, and blue can of seasoning next to the Pam spray (fourth shelf from top)? That’s “Pleasoning” … and it belonged to my mom. I remember this very can from when I was a kid in Milwaukee. The company address on the can does not include a ZIP code, if that’s any indication of its age (and mine). No, I don’t use it, even though the seasoning hasn’t hardened into a brick—suspicious in itself. I just like thinking about how long it’s been in the family.

Mother Hubbard’s a little skeptical of my good intentions, which one can expect of a centenarian. Everyone, including cabinets, evidently, seems to resist change when they get up there in years. “I’m fine just as I am,” I hear her murmur. “All these coats keep me warm.” “Nonsense,” I reply, as I unscrewed the knob from her tall top door. “You’ll love it. You’ll look and feel 50 years younger, I promise.” As I get out the Jasco stripper, I’m sure I see her tighten her grip on her eight-plus coats of paint.

I haven’t used Jasco for years, and I am concerned about the smell in our kitchen, even with the window open and a fan running. To my surprise, I can barely smell it. I suspect, like many chemical products, it’s been reformulated  to be less stinky … and consequently, less effective. Mother H blushes every time she hears the word “stripper,” but Lacy is up for anything.

The first application of stripper eats through the current buff and into shell pink, a couple of sky blues, some Pepto-Bismol pink, and sunshine yellow. As I scrape the goo, I try to imagine my kitchen with blue or pink trim and cabinets. “We’re committed now, Mrs. H … you might as well let go of all those old coats!” But the old lady clutches her glad rags even more firmly, daring me to go further.

After the second application of Jasco, I’ve got her down to her skivvies: a crispy, stubborn tan over a shiny, buttermilky white (what many fashionable cabinets were wearing in 1913). Patches of clear fir are showing through, and her edges are looking sharp and square again. But these base coats are resistant. I pictured Mother H as a subject on What Not to Wear. “Oh, Mrs. Hubbard … that’s got to go! No one has worn lead-based enamel since the ’60s!”

The third application’s the charm, and Mother Hubbard’s beautiful skin—er, wood, is exposed. Almost seems a shame to paint her again. But it would look odd to have two natural fir doors in a room of white painted cabinets. I flip her over and begin exfoliating her back.

I wanted to wait until Mother Hubbard’s transformation was complete to post this … but she’s taking a little longer than I’d expected (how typical). Every morning I feel like working on the kitchen as I sit at work … but by the time I come home and get dinner, I’m tired and not so much gets done. I still have to strip Mother H’s lower door, sand and paint everything, not to mention tackle her interior liposuction. So, you’ll have to wait a little longer for the big reveal. It’s feeling less like a makeover and more like major surgery. Mother Hubbard is anxious to get it over with.

 

When guests refuse to leave

Since the centennial party, I’ve been hanging out with a couple of old friends. We spend a lot of time lolling around the house, watching trash TV, drinking wine, and generally ignoring the responsibilities of life. [Eric’s photo]

It’s been fun and relaxing, but lately I’ve had this niggling feeling that I really should get back to work on our renovation project. Except … my company won’t leave. Let me introduce you to two of my oldest friends: Procrastination and Inertia.

Oh, we go way back. My first grade teacher labeled me as a procrastinator. What a rap to lay on a six-year-old kid! I’ve dedicated my life to fulfilling my potential in that regard. But at some point, when house guests have outstayed their welcome, you just have to give ’em the boot. I finally picked up a paint brush and stared down the bead board in the breakfast room.

I’d bought several gallons of yellow and white paint before we decided to renovate the kitchen. (I’ve changed shades of yellow since then. Anyone need some egg-yolk-yellow paint?) The Valspar Chef White that I intended to use for the trim is ever-so-close to the Benjamin Moore Glacier White I’m using on the cabinets. With shifting light on all the planes of white, I don’t think anyone will be able to tell it’s not the same paint. At least I’m betting on that, because I refuse to waste two gallons of perfectly good paint.

First, I popped off the old shoe molding and sanded the mop board until I found a layer of paint that seemed to want to stick to the wood. (The bead board here has been primed.)

Painting progress is slow. I have to force in enough paint to seal up the tiny gaps between the individual boards. It takes a lot of paint and a fair amount of pressure on the brush. You can see the effect in the photo on the right: It makes the expanse of bead board look cohesive and seamless.

I have to work quickly to achieve the desired effect, yet not overwork the paint. (Paint these days seems to get tacky quicker than it used to.) It’ll take two coats, because I want the new bead board to have the softened look of several coats of paint. Does that sound crazy? To install new bead board and not want it to look brand spankin’ new?

I finish one coat on one wall, and wouldn’t you know it, my lazy friends reappear to distract me for another evening.

Then I wise up and buy a nappy roller to speed up the coverage–much better! I still follow up with a brush.

When I look up, I find I’m being watched.

I have ACRES to paint: all the bead board around the breakfast room and kitchen, the kitchen ceiling, and the plaster kitchen walls—all of it twice! Then there’s the new cabinet face frames, doors, and drawer fronts, and the drawer boxes—two, three, even four coats. I enjoy painting, but I’ll be at this task a looong time. On this plan of the kitchen, I have to paint bead board all the way around the breakfast room and kitchen (not the back hall), except for over the sink. The red line shows how far I’ve gone on coat 1. Yes, I have a long way to go … two laps.

It’s September, which means we have now been working on the kitchen for an entire year. I suppose that’s not unusual for a major DIY project, and we have not exactly pushed ourselves most of the time. However, I’m adamant that we be DONE before the holidays. I want to stuff my bird in a FINISHED kitchen!

But … how many posts can I write about painting before we all die of boredom and you leave, never to return? (“Yeah,” you’re saying … “This is as exciting as watching paint dry!”) My painting marathon will be an opportunity to write about other aspects of our house. Thanks to some of my blog friends, I have a cache of inspirations to play with.

Now, back to the painting. Where are those old friends when I want them?

But wait—bonus feature!

Because we’re harvesting ripe garden veggies almost every day now, we soon found ourselves in a cloud of drosophila—yes, the dreaded summer fruit fly invasion. How to get rid of them without using spray? Eric made this trap out of a glass, a slice of banana, a cone of paper and some tape. Works like a charm, and the pesky critters can be humanely released outside to reenter the house another day.

Now, back to painting. Really. Although … it’s such a beautiful Sunday … maybe we should drive down to Tacoma and go to the art museum!

May I have my old kitchen back now, please?

Maybe this project was a big mistake. Maybe we’ve bitten off waaaay more than we can chew. Weeks go by, nothing much changes. It’s not at all like an HGTV show.  We are still walking on the last layer of 1940s linoleum, we still have plywood countertops, and we still aren’t finished with the south wall cabinets. It’s been five months. Where is our new kitchen? I looked at some of our “before” photos, and I miss the old room … I want it back! It wasn’t so bad. Sure, it was kind of shabby and worn… with woefully inadequate storage and cabinet doors that didn’t close because they had so many layers of paint … but it was homey and mostly functional, well, sort of functional, and I didn’t have to fish plates or olive oil out of a crate in the dining room. (Okay, I did have to store some large pots in the attic, but never mind about that). This tunnel must be curved, because I can’t make out any light at the other end.

The upper cabinet doors are back from the glazier’s and they look gorgeous with their wavy vintage glass. I’d love to see them up where they belong, with our new hardware, but first I have to paint the cabinet where they’ll be installed. But wait—I can’t paint until I fill the holes and chips. Hells bells (as my mother would say)—is any of the paint in this house actually stuck to the surface it covers?? Every little chip is the gateway to a big peel. This house wears its paint not like a skin, but more like a loose jacket. (Is that why it’s called a “coat” of paint?) After troweling on wood filler and wall spackle, I still have to sand again before I can paint this section, and then it will have to cure for several days before we can hang the doors. I HATE prep work!

And what about Eric? His enthusiasm must be flagging, too. The poor guy is still serving an indeterminate sentence down in the dungeon—I mean the shop. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him that the details of his face are getting hazy. Off and on I hear the sound of power tools, and a series of doors and drawer fronts—and lately the drawers themselves—have made their way upstairs. We must be making progress … it’s just hard to see because we’re too close to it. Right? Tell me I’m right!

Before I could paint the base cabinet doors, Eric had to make sure they fit their individual openings perfectly. He cleverly suspended the doors on homemade metal hangers that are just thick enough to provide the right gap on all four sides.

To attach the face frames to the cabinet carcasses, Eric laid each base cabinet down on the floor on its back and glued, clamped, and screwed the face frames to the boxes (the frames are primed but not yet painted). Using our kitchen as a kitchen became impossible. You can bet Duke was right there supervising, too. No matter how tight it gets, there’s always room for a boxer.

Last week Casey, our electrician, came by to rewire the stove and install a couple of outlets. This nasty ol’ conduit, a serpent from the basement, is now gone, replaced by the neat wall outlet in the baseboard. We can actually push the stove completely back against the wall now, gaining 1.5 square feet of floor space! The old linoleum is in really bad shape here, having been cooked  beneath the stove for decades.

But, the pièce de résistance is certainly our under-cabinet light bar. These dimmable LED lights shed a soft glow that made me fall in love with the kitchen again—even in its present state. I love the way the light softly washes over the battery charger and rotary sander.

Seen from below …

Now that I’ve seen it in a different light, I guess I’ll keep my not-even-half-done kitchen after all. Reality: We are trapped and there’s only one way out of this mess.