97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

So, I bought my house 7 years ago, and it's a work in progress. I have a number of rooms that need fixed up. I enlisted the help of my buddy who paints professionally to help me do my kitchen and possibly my 2 bathrooms.

The first and most pressing need was the kitchen. My ex-gf who I used to live with decided that she wanted to paint my kitchen, and did an absolutely horrible job. I don't have any good befores from when I bought the house, but it started off with wallpaper which she removed with a butter knife. In the process, she grooved the plaster severely, especially above the sink and stove where it shows most prominently. On the bulkhead above the cabinets, she simply left the wallpaper glue from the border and painted right over it. She also didn't tape off the edges correctly, so there is paint bleed all over the ceiling, walls, under the bulkhead, etc.

Worse than that is the color scheme that she chose, she wanted to do a 2 tone brick red and tuscan yellow, however the "tuscan yellow" turned out more orange than yellow, and we had to cut it with eggshell off-white paint to try and make it look better, however it didn't help. My kitchen has been this way for about 5 years, and I asked her to move out 4 years ago, so it was time for a change, and I was sick of looking at it every day.

I took lots of before pictures, as we were going to need at least an entire day of prep before we could even think about painting. I also wanted to show just how bad of a job it was.

Here you can see the "back splash" area above my sink that I have been staring at since she painted. You can see the groove marks from the butter knife from where she removed the wallpaper, it's accentuated even more by the dark red color. You can also see the square cut in line where she used a cut-in tool from home depot, and did not blend the paint or smooth it out whatsoever.
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The cut in line continues all the way under the cabinetry from 1 end of the wall to the other, here is to the right of the kitchen, you can also see that she painted right over all of the outlets, which I will be replacing as well. You can also notice the paint bleed on the right corner, it looks like this at every edge and corner in the room.
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Here you can see the tape bleed from the bulkhead onto the white ceiling, as well as primer that was not painted over at all
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I couldn't get a good before of the border glue at the top of the bulkhead, you can kind of see it in this picture, but you can also see more butter knife grooves at the bottom of the bulkhead.
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Excuse the spider webs, I cleared them out after I took these before pics. This is the corner behind my fridge. Here you can really see the shitty quality of the paint job. The white ceiling paint bleeds over onto the yellow about a half inch down. You can also see yellow on the ceiling, and traces in the corner of the first orange "tuscan yellow" that she started with.
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A better shot of the ceiling paint bleeding down over the wall paint. I actually removed most of this with a finger nail.
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Top corner of the bulkhead and ceiling, more paint bleed on both sides, both red and white on the ceiling as well as a roller mark in the corner, and the seam which doesn't appear to have been painted at all. This is the edge right next to the doorway entering the kitchen.
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Here you can see where the wet red paint was not allowed to dry before it was taped off, leading to paint removal and more paint bleeding
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This is the other side of the room toward the window, the other edge of the cabinets with the bulkhead above. Here you can see more primer that wasn't painted, tape bleed, paint on the cabinets, and the line between the bulkhead and cabinets that was not painted at all.
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Some 1960's wallpaper showing through as well in that crevice between the cabinets and bulkhead.
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She also tried to patch the edge of the window sill with mud, however didn't sand down the mud and simply painted over it, you can see more of the original orange color here as well.
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The window sill/frame was quite a surprise as I usually have the blinds down in the kitchen. There was wallpaper glue all around it, and the plaster was bubbled. This also was simply painted over.
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You can also see the first orange color showing through
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maharajamd

iTrader: (1)

Sand, sand, patch, sand, thin-coat it all, sand, primer, base.

Good luck.

Also, I love my Wagner sprayer. It puts down such a clean coat of paint it will actually bug you because you're so used to seeing the texture rollers leave behind.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Way ahead of you... those were only the befores

maharajamd

iTrader: (1)

Cool.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

So, I posted the befores to show you what kind of nightmare that I'm dealing with. Here are a few of the prep work.

We had to sand all the painted over glue off the bulkhead. My buddy also sanded the entire ceiling with a pole sander.
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We then sanded all the thick cut-in line around the cabinets, and mudded over all the butterknife holes in the plaster and sand smooth.
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We also had to sand and patch numerous paint bumps and drips around the room. As you can see in the bottom of this picture, she also had glued up vinyl cove base that had fallen off because she didn't know what she was doing, so I was left with the cove base adhesive at the bottom which I had to soak with adhesive remover and scrape by hand.
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Here's the cove base adhesive removed, I got half the room done before my wrist gave out from scraping.
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My buddy mudded the whole bulkhead and sanded it smooth, we still have some final sanding left to do, but this is what it looks like prepped.
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He also caulked the top edge of the counter tops with painter's caulk.
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Remember the bumpy glued window sill? That also got sanded and remudded as well.
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svtmike

The next thread better be "BlackAck's Cabinet Refacing Thread".

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Yeah, once the painting is complete. Want to see how the gray comes out before I decide what to do with the cabinets

maharajamd

iTrader: (1)

I was going to mention the cabinets too. But then thought, what kind of wood are they? Walnut? Alder? I'd almost restore them and just add new hardware...

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

^I'm honestly not sure what wood they are. I plan to replace all the hardware and restore them somehow. Like I said, I am waiting to get the paint up before I decide what direction to go. Even when I was taking these pics, I was thinking I wonder what asshat is going to say something about the cabinets. Mikey as usual did not let me down....

maharajamd

iTrader: (1)

The real question is...

What's the big black circle on your fridge? Lol

Acura_Dude

Great progress. Maybe you could sand the cabinets down and restain them lighter color or paint them white and change the countertops down the road. Can't wait to see the newly painted kitchen.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Maybe it's a ghost?

maharajamd

iTrader: (1)

First pic of the second post. Looks like there are blue and red letters on the fridge and then a giant black dot. Lol

Anyway, going to put new trim in too?

oo7spy

I have an 8" silicon wafer on my fridge. Looks about like that.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Actually, it's a bullseye with the center pretty much cleaned out, I slapped it up there one day and never took it down. Figured it's a nice warning to burglars if they're trying to come in that side of the house

maharajamd

iTrader: (1)

That's cool I'm just being curious. Lol

Acura_Dude

That's their first warning.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Well, we finished the sanding and prep last night and started slapping up the first coats of paint, the ceiling got painted with a white called "Futon" and the red is being replaced with a "Garret Gray". The Gray appears brown when it goes on, but dries more dark gray, it's a nice earthy neutral tone, and looks 100 times better than the brick yourself in the head red.

First step was to do the ceiling.
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My buddy who's a professional painter primed the mud patches and painted by hand with a brush, before smoothing over with a roller for the first coat.
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As I mentioned, I wanted to see how the cabinets look with the gray before deciding what direction to go with them.

We also replaced all the outlets and light switches in the kitchen since my ex had painted over all of them, and they were rather old.
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My buddy who's an electrician helped with that.
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I didn't get any finished pictures of the bulkhead yet since it was really late, but we did pull the stove out to see how far down my ex painted, also you can see the old 60's floral wallpaper on the bottom left.
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maharajamd

iTrader: (1)

Since she's an ex...

How can people live with such mediocrity? I can't fathom painting/doing house work and being "ok" with even half that quality of work. Hell I painted our living room three times over before I was happy with the perfection.

Makes you wonder...

Looks good man. Not sure about the cabinets and the grey though. And you should run some under cabinet lighting while you're doing this job...

svtmike

Cabinets definitely need paint and modern hardware.

White would be a good, clean contrast to the darker wall color. And it will not clash with the white appliances.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

I actually said that to my buddy yesterday, who knew my ex pretty well. I said, I can't imagine how in any form she could look at the job when she was done, and be proud of it and feel like it was a good job. I'm mildly OCD when it comes to details, and have been staring at the shoddy work for years. I wanted to undo it much earlier, but had to deal with my health and back issues before tackling such a project because I knew the prep was going to be a nightmare.

Thankfully my buddy ended up painting for a living and was able to get the paint and supplies that we needed, so that really helped out with the process. Also him knowing what he was doing has helped tremendously as well.

Thanks, yeah again, I'm not sure about the gray and cabinets, I was concerned that they would clash. I definitely see a cabinet restoration thread in my future once I actually get my kitchen back together. And I have other plans for the lighting

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Interesting thought... I'm not sure white cabinets would be ideal though, probably too hard to keep clean and looking nice. I definitely plan to change the shade, just not sure how yet, and new hardware is a must. These are the colors that I'm using... Not sure how white cabinets would mesh.
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97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

No, actually, this is their first warning...
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KaMLuNg

iTrader: (5)

are you doing to do the trim in white? i.e. around the windows? that should give you a good idea of the contrast... with the darker colored walls, i'd be tempted to contrast it with a lighter tone cabinet... if there are too many imperfections when you sand down the cabinets and need to keep it dark, then pop the contrast on the countertops...

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

I will be doing the lower trim white

svtmike

I'd still go white. Don't want too much matchy-matchy going on... two shades of grey is probably enough.

maharajamd

iTrader: (1)

White would look good. Especially if you've considered swapping out that linoleum flooring for something else. The room doesn't look too huge and that stuff is really easy (usually) to pull up and replace.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

I defintely want to rip up the vinyl flooring, after peaking underneath and seeing wood laminate, I decided to wait and pay someone to do the flooring. I plan to do some sort of tile

KaMLuNg

iTrader: (5)

if it is a smaller room, the white cabinets would make it look bigger... so go with a glossier finish and you shouldn't have a problem keeping them clean...

Acura_Dude

Nice update.

AWESOME DOGS!






Seems like the consensus is white for cabinets. I mentioned that earlier. Ack, In my head I have an ideal of what I'd like my future kitchen to look like and it'll definitely have white cabinets UNLESS I decide to go bold with color. I'm somewhat over dark/light (or any other variation of stain)cabinets. Even espresso is tiring to look at. In a lot of the new builds here they're going dark cabinets with lighter countertops (granite) for contrast. I'm seeing it a lot here which makes me want to go with white cabinets.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

It's funny because I showed some pics to my buddy at lunch and he said white cabinets would look good as well

I will start looking into that and see what I come up with, my buddy has a really nice white picked out to do the trim, so I will see if I like that. Also, The 2 tone I will be doing is this gray with a tan called "Sand Dune" Not sure what Mikey was referring to with the 2 grays. The rest of the paint should be going up tonight, more pics tomorrow!

Whiskers

I need you to do my house.

svtmike

In the straight on pics, the dark grey looks dark grey, but in the angled pics it looks brown to me.

I assumed in the angled pic you showed with the other that it was also a grey that just looked brown in the picture.

litesout

The white cabinets would look nice, but they are really difficult to keep clean. When my buddy bought his house we painted his kitchen cabinets white. Within the first year they started to show wear, and now 5 years later they look terrible. The white paint has almost completely worn off on the corners of the commonly used doors and the areas around the drawers looks just as bad. To be fair, we didn't use the special cabinet paint but it was a high quality white.

Sarlacc

What about 50?

svtmike

48 too many.

I'm sure Ack has read the books and can comment.

maharajamd

iTrader: (1)

Prep the cabinets correctly. Use a primer and a high quality white and even a semi-gloss. Use new good hardware and proper door stops. Clean them regularly and they will last.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Correct, I took these while the first coat was still wet. It definitely goes on more brown and dries gray, but depending on how the light hits it, it does have a brown undertone. In person when it's dry, it definitely is more dark gray.

I want to switch my halogens to a warmer temp, I have super cool white bulbs in there and it doesn't mesh well with the earthy darker tones.

KaMLuNg

iTrader: (5)

^this... its all in the prep work... if you sand everything down properly, primer and get high quality paint... it will last... go to Benj Moore or Sherwin Williams and talk to the ppl there... don't use big box paint if you want it to last... usually your hands are wet if you are prepping dinner and water is havoc on cheap paint... you don't have that much cabinets for it to be too pricey to buy high quality paint... do it right the first time, or you will end up doing it again and spending more money.. I've learned this the hard way on my first house...

also, if I ever had to do it over again, I would spend a bit more money on an engineered countertop like quartz vs granite... less maintenance and you don't have to worry about having to seal the stone... this will all depend on how much you cook... my wife cooks every night so I find myself sealing our granite countertops every year...