Cabinet Liners

So this post is pretty simple, but I think it's a cute detail so I thought I would share.  

Because our cabinets are 50 years old and when we cleaned them there was so much dirt (etc.) trapped in the stain we decided it would give us peace of mind about using all of our dishes if we put liners inside the cabinets and drawers. 

Well of course, that got me thinking about finding something cute to put there.  I realize I haven't shared all of the kitchen with you yet, but I will soon, just one more detail to finish! ;-) 

For the colors in the kitchen I tried a fairly retro combination: cherry red and baby blue.  The cabinets (you can read about those here) are a light grey and the counter tops (more on those here) are dark grey.  You don't know it yet, but the kitchen floors are white with grey grout.  So I felt like with all that grey I could play with some bright colors!  My original intention was to put red accent tiles on the floor, but we decided that would be visually overwhelming.  I still really wanted my red accents, so these liners were the perfect solution!  

The liner themselves are made out of what is called oil cloth.  It is a laminated canvas or cotton.  The laminated part means that there is a plastic/vinyl type "seal" on the top, but it is also thicker than contact paper, which means it is far more durable.   This stuff is also very easy to clean, just wipe it down! Once I had settled on oil cloth I had to find a cute one with a red and white print.  I settled on Fabric.com's red and white polka dots!  They are so cute and fit perfectly with my sort of "retro" theme.  I ordered 8 yards and simple measured and cut to fit.  I have tons left over.  I am glad I over estimated though, I would rather have too much than too little! 

I might even make a cute tablecloth out of the extra. (The one below I found on Oilclothaddict.com, via pinterest.) I would love to put elastic around the edges so that it's easy to take outside and clean off!  

Ok, enough about that, this is how I did it: Measure. Cut.  Trim.  Spray Adhesive (outside).  Stick in Place.  Adjust.  Smooth.  Next Piece.   

It's a pretty simple process, however it was made slightly more complex because I had to take everything out of the cabinets.  The silver lining in that is that it gave me the opportunity to move things around in the kitchen while I had everything out.   

As you can see, I didn't get all the wrinkles out and some of the pieces will have to be trimmed still.  And to be honest, I still have about 1/3 of the cabinets/drawers left to finish.  Let's face it, blogs aren't always a perfect as they seem.  I am trying to give a true (but typically cleaner than usual) representation of our life at the Foster house.  It's not perfect, but neither are we.  PTL. 

Do you love it as much as I do? Do you hate it? Do you have any experience with Oilcloth?  Don't you love it!!?  It's an impressive fabric, and becoming a favorite. :)

Until next time,

Sarah

Cabinets

 Just to recap, this is what the kitchen looked like before.  It was COVERED in that orange-y wood.  It was everywhere. Even the walls. It was a little bit charming, in a woodsy cabin kind of way, but not for us.  We removed the two horseshoe shotgun holders that were above the door and we began to see potential.

Let me give you a brief recap on what happened.  I don't have pictures of all of this unfortunately.  :-(

My parents took the doors off (we didn't label them!) We used this stuff called citrus-strip on the doors to take off the finish.  This was grueling labor.  Fifty year old Varnish doesn't come off easily.  We probably should have done two kinds of varnish/stain remover or two passes of the citrus strip and a washing with mineral oil in between but I was so very over it that  I didn't.

After the counter-tops were in I knew I wanted the cabinets to be gray too.  I sort of hated to cover up all the wood, because it was beautiful, just too much pine.  So my thought was to do a gray "whitewash."  Well my friends, it seems that this is not a common choice because there was very little to choose from.

I really wanted to use a product like the ones below because I thought it would be easier, but alas, they didn't have any in Gray.  :-(

We ended up with a water based tinted gray that was really dark, a white wash that was called pickled white and a clear sealer.  I was impatient so I sort of blended them together.  to get the look I was after.  These were some of the samples that I tried on an inconspicuous area. (As a side note: we didn't get the wood that clean, that is untouched wood that was previously covered by the laminate backsplash and the inside of a cabinet.) 

Another reason that this was a bad sample of what it would look like later is that this was raw wood and almost everywhere else had been stripped, but still had a slight stain to it. 

This is how they turned out.  for some reason there is a slight pink/orange hue.  It is probably because  I didn't do the whitewash before I did the graywash. But who knows.   I think they look pretty cool.  Daniel likes them too.  (We spray painted the hardware: first with a metal primer in white and then in a oil rubbed bronze, two coats, more on that at another time!)

If I had it to do all over again I would do a few things slightly different:
1) I would be more patient. (Ugh, yes I was VERY impatient about getting it done, but now I wish I had taken more time.) 
2) I would do a whole coat in the whitewash, then a whole coat in the gray-wash, then a whole coat in the pickling whitewash. (That's why I was so impatient, I sort of smeared all those together in 1 coat)
3) I would have also done the inside of the doors.
4) While we are on doors, I would have labeled them from the start. Big mistake!
5)  I wish I had known more about Chalk paint.  I think I would have considered it. (Maybe it isn't off the table)


Well next time I'll show you the floors and then what the kitchen looks like now!

love,

Sarah