Phase 1 and 2 of my Kitchen Rehab Project
I built my kitchen about 22 years ago. My wife and I designed it and I built all of it except the granite countertops. We continue to like the layout but got tired of the bland color, so last year I decided it was time for a face lift with a punch of color. The old kitchen looked like this.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/kE...w=w800-h600-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/zz...0=w470-h626-no
We liked the floor tile, too, which was part of the kitchen project 20+ years ago, but several of them had cracked and we never could keep the grout clean, so I ripped it out and replaced it with bamboo, which I have regretted every since. The color is not what we thought, it scratches fairly easily and, worst of all it shows every bit of dust and dirt. I suspect I'm going to rip it out and replace it with some sort of vinyl or linoleum tile after the rest of the kitchen is done.
Last Winter I removed the doors and drawers on the peninsula section in the photo above, cut the stiles off, sanded the veneer off the composite plywood, reveneered that with shop sawn white ash, and then added new ash stiles. Getting the open shelf cabinets out from under the granite was an incredibly difficult task because the granite guys had put globs of adhesive on the tops of the cabinets as they set the granite in place. I kept the maple moldings, just stripped, sanded and finished them to match the ash. So this was phase 1.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/YU...0=w470-h626-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wj...=w1006-h566-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/qn...0=w835-h626-no
As the last two photos shows I ran the veneer horizontally on the doors and drawer fronts. The actual colors are a little different than in most of the photos, the gray is more like the last photo above and not blue like it looks in the first one. It's pretty funny when people first see it. Some say "I love it.", others say, "Oh, my, that's different." and others say nothing. LOL The gray is not what it was on the color chip even though it is exactly the same when you put it on a piece of paper. The underlying ash must alter the color somehow, and is likely a function of the product I used not being a true paint. I didn't use paint because I didn't want to mask the pores of the ash. Anyway, it's not what we originally wanted but we're happy with it except it doesn't do with the bamboo floor, which is another reason the floor is going to go.
Last Summer was completely consumed with other projects so I just got back to the kitchen a month ago. Here's what the stove/sink area look like now that the upper cabinet doors have been mostly completed and new LED puck lights installed.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ZI...=w1006-h566-no
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ef...=w1006-h566-no
I ran the veneer vertically this time, and I like it better. On the lowers I will run the veneer in the long direction of whatever the component is, as if you were making them with solid wood. I have to say I like the look better on this section and I may go back and redo the doors above the peninsula after it's all done.
The last photo shows the shop made paper backed veneer I made that covers the Melamine cabinet side where the vent hood is. I had used commercial paper backed maple veneer with the original kitchen on those sections and it had survived all those years w/o a problem, despite the steam and grease it was exposed to. But rather than buy commercial stuff this time, I made my own by gluing some Kraft paper onto the back of my shop sawn ash veneer with TB II in the vacuum bag. Then I used 3M's spray contact cement to glue it to the Melamine, and finished it by hand in place. Everything else had been finished by spraying.
The lower cabinets in this section are next.
John
