Blairsvillager.com: An Open and Shut Case

I always have projects going on around Dove Cottage.
Some of them are short term, instant gratification;
others are finished gradually...

Now you may be thinking to yourself: gradual projects never get finished, and end up sitting half done forever. Not so with me, my friends. I'm very improvisational -- we improv-artists start with a basic plan, and it slowly evolves from there. It made me a better designer through the years because improv is flexible. Of course, it might be .. well.. why I'm divorced. Improv drove J crazy!

Sunday after church at Unity, I thought to myself: I think I'll have a relaxing day around the cottage and start on those kitchen cabinets. I already had the plan, but had put it on the back burner as
something I could do when the weather started cooling down. I tend to put projects into 2 categories: warm weather, cool weather.

The Plan
1) Remove doors from some of the kitchen cabinets and have open shelving for displaying my collection of white dishes (see White on White in the blog archives). Store doors in shed.

2) Change color of the cabinets from antique white to pure white.

So this is where I started:

One Door Removed -- 2 to go

After the other doors and all the contents were removed, I spacked the screw holes and rough spots, then let them dry. I then sanded lightly with fine paper. I was ready to paint. STOP!!!

Now here's Hint #1:

Trying out the "look" to see how I should proceed

When removing cabinet doors to make open shelving, do yourself a favor and try it out first -- like in the photo above. If you don't like it, then you don't have to paint the inside of the cabinet so perfectly -- you'll be putting the doors back on and it won't show. I'm not one of those designers who thinks what doesn't show still has to be perfect. Decorating should be fun, for Pete's sake. (Always wondered who "Pete" is.)

I even put a piece of textured brick wallpaper in to see how I liked it -- it's going on the wall around the cabinet, and I thought it might look interesting for the cabinet to look like it was hung backless on a brick wall. Still up in the air about that. That's the improvisational thingy I was talking about.

Hint #2:
If you're going to use a faux brick product to give the nuance and ambience of exposed brick, limit it to the walls that are common to the exterior -- where it would have been originally used in the structural architecture of the building.

Since I may or many not put the wallpaper inside the back of the cabinet, I need to go ahead and paint it, so I'm good either way. Okay -- I'm ready to remove the dishes and start painting.

I used Home and Garden by Glidden, in Eggshell/Satin Cotton White, one of those products with primer and paint in one. I loved the paint by the way, and am not being paid to say that! It is the perfect viscosity and gives excellent coverage. I applied two light coats and voila -- I was done. As a matter of fact, the paint was so easy to apply, I decided to also open another cabinet up on the other wall for glasses and cups, and additional white dishes.

In the photo below, you can see the difference in the old antique white and the new Cotton White: