days of labor

When we first purchased our home, we knew that one of our larger projects was going to be re-decorating the kitchen. The grape-pattern wallpaper border and antique crackle faux finish paint was just not our style . . . not to mention the hidden dark purple INSIDE the cabinet doors.
So we eventually pulled down the grapes of wrath . . .

. . . removed some cabinet doors . . .
. . . and began stripping paint off of the doors.
Layer,
after layer. We discovered that before the purple + faux finish era, at some point these cabinets were painted blue, and before that they were beige.
You have to love this look of the stage when the doors are just partially stripped. Maybe we should have just stopped here and put the doors back on . . .
. . . or maybe not. At any rate, after many applications of paint remover, we reached the original wood . . .
. . . which Forest cleaned, sanded, scraped, and cleaned . . .
. . . until they looked something like this:
So, Labor Day weekend it was time to begin tackling the actual cabinets, which involved a very similar messy process--it just happened in the middle of the kitchen, instead of down in the garage:
Step 1: Strip paint
Step 2: Clean wood
Step 3: Sand, sand, sand

Step 4: remove 1960's decor . . .
. . . from here
Step 5: Primer-time
Hopefully we are not too far from our "new" Dixon kitchen . . . although it seems like there are still a lot of steps left to go . . .

Speaking of kitchen makeovers, you should see what my sister-in-law is doing with their home! Our project is nothing compared to theirs.