While the Cat's Away, The Mice Will...Do House Projects

So, after not seeing Charlie for 3 weeks (1 week I was in NL, 2 weeks he was in Russia), he finally returned home last night, yay! I feel complete; seriously, I do!

Since I had the house to myself and the furballs, I decided it would be a good time to:

1. Spring clean (read no further if you're overly judgmental about the cleanliness of one's home)

2. Re-seal the slate in the kitchen (it had only been 5 years since the last time...3 years "late" according to the slate floor gurus)

3. Update the master bath cabinets (bye bye oak color)

4. Miscellaneous

#1 took me a whole week to do, but felt really good when it was completed. You know, vacuuming the dog hair out of the cracks in the stairs and under/behind the bed. Hand scrubbing floors and baseboards and dare I say it? Dusting every surface in the house (even the windows above the fireplace and front door and fridge that no one ever sees). I was proud.

#2 was a result of being sad looking at my dull floors and wanting to re-seal for quite some time. I bought a low VOC matte-finish 'enhancer' and sealant. It took an entire afternoon to clean, seal, wait, seal, wait, seal, cure - but I'm pleased as punch! Achieving sparkling floors with 2 hairy dogs and 2 dirty owners who go in-and-out of the back door every 7 seconds is a feat!

#3 took about 4-5 days in total between prep, painting and curing. I was tired of our oak cabinetry's look since it's not my style preference, and short of an entire bath redo (which I would like to do if it were free and didn't over-reno our house for the market) I decided a cabinet refinishing was a perfect fit.

I have been seeing adverts for the Rustoleum Transformations cabinet and counter refinishing kits and thought this would be a perfect project to tackle and perfect product to try! In short, the process was easy and intuitive and I recommend the product. I chose the color "Espresso", and used the glaze to darken it up and give it dimension. I didn't think it would matter that much for the dark hues, but it absolutely did. Consider using the glaze even for dark shades.

Some tips:

a. The drying time is extensive, especially when doing drawers and doors since they are two-sided, so take that into consideration when doing the project.

b. Humidity makes the drying time more important, so if you live in an Htown-like swamp environment, be prepared to wait longer between steps.

c. Watch for drips on your base coat step. Seriously. Luckily my drips were concentrated in the under-cabinet areas, so you can't really tell.

d. When they tell you not to overbrush the protective coat, DON'T OVERBRUSH! Watch for obvious drips (again), but a thick coat dries as clear as a thin one. It dries fast and will clump if you try to be anal and get the surface looking exact before moving on. Oh yeah, and move FAST!

e. Have a clean, prepared surface for your doors and drawers to lay on and PROP THEM UP from underneath if you can. Also, see item "c" from above because I was a little too heavy-handed on a couple coats and it dripped, then stuck to the drying surface - end result, sloppy.

Before & Afters:

#4 includes miscellaneous items like organizing underneath the bathroom cabinets (SO excited for it!), planting hanging baskets in the front yard, weeding the gardens, cleaning the kiddie pool for Stinkdog, bathing Stinkdog (so she was less stinkly), and learning to use the thermostat (don't ask).

All in all a productive couple of weeks. Idle hands and all that. Yay!