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DIY Nightmare Kitchen Cabinet Finish

December 13, 2013 by Eric Deeter

We got a call from a real estate investor who had purchased a bank-owned property. He had plans to renovate it and re-sell it, and he called us to take a look at the kitchen. The previous owners had done a faux finish on the kitchen cabinets and island. It looked as if they were trying to do a “pickled oak” look because they smeared a white glaze over the crevasses to “highlight” them.

But the attempt to create a “faux stone” look on the panels of the island set this kitchen over the top. I don’t recall seeing any kitchen cabinets with real stone panels. The purpose of faux painting is to create something you would find in real life. For example, the artists in ancient Venice created faux marble because the homes built on stilts couldn’t support the weight of real marble. So even if the faux stone had looked real they would have been out of place on this island.

But faux stone is a difficult technique to get right–as you can see from these pictures. Faux stone is more technical than just sponging on several colors of paint. This attempt at stone was just that–paint sponged on. The results were awful.

And the faux stone panels created a challenge for us as well. When we refinish cabinets we usually have the texture of the grain we can work with. But this faux finish filled the grain. Yet the rest of the cabinets still had the grain. Brenda had to find a technique that would work with both the grain texture and the smooth. She settled on a metallic base coat and glaze over the top. this created a soft glow and the glaze she did over the top created the color of wood.

The rest of the cabinets we painted an off-white with a soft glaze over the top. Of course, we finished it off with a clear coat to protect it all. Our work fit well with the other updates the investor put in to this house. It’s now on the market and getting good feedback. I’m sure it will sell soon.

Oh yes. We also had a built-in hutch the previous owners did some sort of faux distressed technique. We did the same finish on the lower ones that we did on the island. And we finished the uppers as we did the main kitchen cabinets.

Decorative Finishes for Ceilings

October 28, 2013 by Eric Deeter

Decorative finish on tray ceiling. — After: Decorative metallic plaster technique.

Although much of our work these days is refinishing kitchen cabinets we still hold fast to our faux and decorative finishing roots. We were asked to do a decorative finish on several tray ceilings for a builder in the Kansas City area. He was getting his houses decorated for the Kansas City Parade of Homes. During the building boom the Parade of Homes was a great event to see the new decorating trends. But the crash of the new home market was tough on builders. They struggled to survive and didn’t put anything extra into their show homes.

The same holds true for our business. Homeowners have tightened their budgets and decorative painting–what everyone called “faux finishing” is no longer a “must have” for home styles. So the style now is to use decorative painting for smaller, featured areas like the tray ceiling pictured above.

This project was one we did for a builder who was putting two houses on the Parade of Homes. We used a metallic plaster to create a subtle pattern on the tray ceiling of the master bedrooms and also the dining rooms.

So even though we talk about refinishing kitchen cabinets a lot these days we don’t want our clients to forget that we haven’t forgotten how to create just the right decorative painting technique to fit your present decor. And whether we’re refinishing kitchen cabinets or working on walls or ceilings with decorative painting, our goal is to give your home a look that won’t go out of fashion in a few years. I wrote about this in a previous blog post about a faux finish we did years ago that still looks good and fits the style of the home.

We believe it is vital to make decorating choices so your home feels like it fits you. We think we’re excellent at helping our clients achieve this goal. And the feedback we get from our clients tends to confirm our belief.

Kitchen Cabinets and Silicone: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly

September 26, 2013 by Eric Deeter

Silicone is a wonderful adhesive. It stands up to stress and temperature fluctuations. It fills gaps and stays flexible forever. That’s why granite companies use it to hold their slabs in place on your kitchen counters.

But there’s another property to silicone that you need to be aware of–it sticks well to all kinds of stuff, but once it’s dry, nothing sticks to it. Now, there are a lot of places that this is a really good thing, and manufacturers put silicone in a lot of stuff–waterproofing spray, car wax, furniture wax. When you see water beading up on your car, that’s the work of silicone. Silicone mess on kitchen cabinets

But if you’re installing new granite before you hire us to refinish your cabinets, it’s a good idea to make sure the granite installers don’t make a mess like the one pictured here. The non-stick properties of silicone apply to paints and glazes as well. When our glaze, paint or primer hits this stuff it just rolls up in beads, just like the water on your newly-waxed car.

What we have to do in a situation like this one is to scrape off the excess silicone and also scrape the existing finish in hopes that we get it all off. Even with our best attempts at scraping there is often a small piece that still clings to the kitchen cabinet and we discover it too late.

Of course, we work to remove it and touch it up, but often such a touch up will make the final finish not quite as good as it could have been.

We will always try to let you know to watch your granite installers and insist they put masking tape on your kitchen cabinets before they start smearing silicone all over the place. Once the granite is in place and before the silicone is dry, you simply remove the masking tape and you have a crisp thin line of silicone at the very top of your kitchen cabinets, hidden from view.

And when you clean your kitchen cabinets and woodwork, don’t use the spray cleaners that claim to “beautify” wood. They contain silicone. If you ever paint your kitchen cabinets or the woodwork in your house, you’ll have to use powerful chemicals to remove the silicone residue before you can refinish.

It’s best to clean woodwork with dish washing detergent or a mixture of a little white vinegar and water in a spray bottle.

Kitchen Cabinet Refinish: Espresso Overglaze

September 11, 2013 by Eric Deeter

This project was in the southwest part of the Kansas City metro. The cabinets were not quite as yellow as some of the yellow oak we’ve seen. But the refinish gave them a rich espresso color. The results look good.

Cabinet Refinishing on Shelves and Fireplace Mantle: Supersize

September 2, 2013 by Eric Deeter

Most of the time the cabinet refinishing work we do is in the kitchen. And we are often refinishing cabinets and shelves around built-in entertainment centers and mantles. And most of the time the highest we have to climb is nine feet or so. But this week we’re working on a super-size mantle and shelves. The ceiling is 16 feet and the wall is 20′ long. That’s a lot of wood to refinish.

Brenda came to me after the first day of cleaning and prepping and said she couldn’t reach the inside of the cabinets up above the fixed shelf. These cabinets are 2 feet deep and the ladder wouldn’t get her close enough.

Cabinet refinish job we have on a big entertainment center. — The fixed shelf Brenda had to stand on. But it wasn’t strong enough to stand on.

I bounced a couple of ideas off of her–all of them she rejected. Well, that’s just our creative process. So I contemplated it and slept on it and then I told her I had an idea that would work. She asked what it was. I told her, “Trust me.”

I bought a few 2x4s and pulled out my box of cedar shims. I also took a few scraps of MDF trim. The problem with the shelf is that it’s particle board–great for holding up books or decorative accessories, but not strong enough to stand on. It needed support. I built a brace just a bit shorter than the shelf. Then I placed the MDF under the legs so I wouldn’t damage the finish. I hammered in the shims under the legs of my brace to wedge it tight against the shelf above.

Brenda was still skeptical when she saw it. She said she knew it was strong enough to support her, but that first step was still hard for her to take.

Testing the height for doing cabinet refinishing on this entertainment center. — She can just reach the top to refinish the inside of this cabinet. The brace did the trick.

This is by far the biggest cabinet we’ve refinished. We’re glazing over the finish to make it darker. But we’re not darkening it very much, so before and after pictures probably won’t show the difference. You may not have a project this big, but we refinish cabinets of all sizes. But we probably won’t find one much bigger than this one.

Full shot of wall and cabinets we have to refinish. — Here’s a full shot of the wall showing the mantle and cabinets we’re refinishing.

Faux Finishes that Keep Their Style

August 27, 2013 by Eric Deeter

Faux finish walls

We’re working for a long-time client, refinishing her kitchen cabinets, fireplace mantle and entertainment center. The picture above is of the powder room we did 8 years ago. It still looks good and still fits the style of the house. As I looked closer at the finish I realized we did it using a sponge.

Now, we began our business back in the days when sponge painting was all the rage. And lots of DIY types were slapping paint on the wall with a sea sponge. Some of them even started small businesses doing sponge painting and “rag-rolling”. But it only took a few years for sponge painting and rag rolling to become “not cool”. If everyone had it and everyone was doing it then it wasn’t “special” any more. And part of the reason sponge painting fell from popularity so quickly is that there were a lot of amateurs doing it and getting amateur-looking results.

The reason I mention this brief history of sponge painting is to point out that we used a sponge on these walls 5 years or so after sponge painting was passe’. You see, we didn’t settle for being amateur DIY types who decided to start a business. We made it a point to find the best faux finishing schools in the nation and attend classes. And we learned the latest styles and techniques, but we didn’t just give our clients the new “hot” look. We took time to make sure that any faux finish we we did would fit the style of the house and would give a look that would stand the test of time. And we had the training to use a sea sponge to create a look that didn’t look like sponge painting.

And now our business is focused almost entirely on refinishing kitchen cabinets. But we still use the same care give our clients a look that’s going to stand the test of time. We’ve been doing faux finishes and refinishing kitchen cabinets for a long time. And we have a portfolio of some really creative and cool finishes we can do on kitchen cabinets. But our focus is on making your house look good, not to show how creative we are. We will always work hard to make your home look amazing with a style that will look good years from now.

Will The Zillow Estimates Be Accurate for Kansas City?

February 7, 2013 by Eric Deeter

The Zillow website has been a go-to site for people looking to buy a home or for those who are just curious about what their home might be worth. Their “zestimates” supposedly use complex formulas to tell the value of your home. From what I’ve seen they have such a big “fudge factor” they’re practically useless.

Now Zillow is getting into the home improvement market. They have a new section called “Diggs” what will let you look at remodeling projects and see “estimates” of what they cost.

They supposedly have a complex formula to adjust for local price differences. When I checked it out the location said “Kansas”. Now Kansas isn’t one of the biggest states, but I think prices are higher in Kansas City than they are in Goodland. One other thing I noticed is that if you filter by “budget” projects the labor cost is lower. I’m wondering if that means you’re going to use someone less skilled than for the “upscale” projects. The labor shouldn’t vary much between two project of similar size. “Economy” grade materials still take the same work on install as the “luxury” materials.

They’ve also created a “Pintrest-esque” feature where you can save pictures of projects you like to show your designer or contractor.

If you’re looking at Zillow “Diggs” before you do a project in the Kansas City metro, realize these prices are ESTIMATES. And if you’re wanting a change in your kitchen give us a call. Our cabinet restyling might be a cost effective way to give you a new look. Refinishing cabinets can also be done as part of rearranging your kitchen. We’re doing a lot of “new meets old” projects where some of the cabinets are new and we make everything match in the end.

For link to article from Bizjournals click HERE

Refinishing Cabinets on a Kitchen Island

February 1, 2013 by Eric Deeter

We traveled a short drive from Kansas City to Leavenworth to help our clients by refinishing cabinets on their kitchen island that was showing signs of wear. They had ask their builder to do a distressed and glazed finish on the cabinets of their kitchen island. The builder had the painters spray the trim paint–an off-white color–and then gave the homeowners some sandpaper and said they could distress it however they wanted. When they finished the painters sprayed a clear gloss over it all.

After living with these cabinets for a few years they felt there was something not quite the way they had hoped for. They called us to see what we could do. Brenda looked at the distressing and pointed out that the areas that were sanded through were places that wouldn’t wear naturally. Usually old pieces of furniture show wear on the edges, not in the middle of the panel. When we work on refinishing cabinets we are careful to distress places that will look like natural wear. Brenda suggested one option we could take is that we distress more of the cabinets and then glaze them to push back some of the starkness of the white.

As we looked more closely at the places the existing finish had broken down we told them the way we work when refinishing cabinets is to start over with new primer and base coats. They agreed and they decided to go for a cleaner look and we decided to paint them and glaze them without any distress. Here is a picture of the before and after.

Island — “Distressing” by builder doesn’t look natural

Part of our decision to start fresh is that the existing finish was an oil-based paint and clear coat. It had yellowed considerably in the five or so years and we knew it would continue to yellow as time went by. We prepped it and primed it with white shellac before using water based acrylic paint and glaze. Our topcoat is a water based poly floor finish. It works great when we’re refinishing cabinets and has proven to be ultra-durable.

Our clients are thrilled with the new look.