I absolutely love what we do. From small necessary fixes to huge complete remodels, we make homes more comfortable, but what we really do is build relationships. I can not express enough how much we love, truly love our customers. They become family to us. This next project is no exception. This one started from a referral from a project we completed for their brother last year, you probably saw the shed addition.

Well…these homeowners wanted to remove their popcorn ceilings, update their kitchen, dining room and hallway, and update their flooring.

The major obstacle with the kitchen was they had already updated their countertops to a beautiful granite and added a new backsplash. So, we had to work around those existing items.

First step was planning out the kitchen, so we worked with our friends at The Home Depot to create the perfect Thomasville Cabinetry kitchen design. We chose the Plaza Maple door and wanted a two toned style for the cabinetry to match another furniture piece that would be remaining in the kitchen. The colors we found that were closest were the Whiskey Black for the base cabinets and Toasted Almond for the uppers.

The upper cabinets were a complete replacement. We wanted to add more cabinet height so we removed the soffit. We also wanted a more built-in look for the fridge so we added a decorative panel. Originally, when the home was built the can lighting were put in the wrong locations, we used this time to update the cans and place in the proper orientation for the best workspace lighting.

The lower cabinets were a little more complicated.  We were switching the cabinets from a partial overlay door to a full overlay door which meant we needed to ensure the door and drawer sizes were a perfect fit. This is where having a trustworthy and patient partner to work with is imperative. We went through every door size and specification for the doors in great detail.

Since we were keeping the base cabinet oak wood boxes we had to sand and refinish them to match the Whiskey Black Thomasville Maple manufactured color. We ordered their stain and glaze, however duplicating a manufactured color on a different type of wood is really really challenging. The first time we put the stain and glaze on, we followed the manufacturers instructions perfectly, however it ended up being too dark. The graining on oak wood is much more prominent and tighter than maple and the glaze really soaked into the grain. So we had to start again! So I decided to test a few of my own methods for staining and after multiple tests, I was able to recreate the same color of the new doors.

What I did to achieve the Whiskey Black stain was using a clean rag I coated the wood with the pre-conditioner then the first stain/toner, and let that sit for 15 minutes. Then I gently wiped any excess. I let this dry overnight. Then working 1 cabinet box at a time, I wiped on the glaze, let sit for 30 seconds, wipe off, wipe on again let sit for 1 minute and wipe off. There were some cabinet boxes that required me to duplicate this step. Just keep in mind that the glaze can darken a little as it dries. The finishing step was applying the polycrylic satin finish. I applied 3 coats to the cabinet boxes and let dry overnight.

We installed the new doors and drawers with soft close hinges, added a new functional cabinet door to the blind cabinet box to create greater access and incorporated decorator doors and corbels for a finishing touch.

We also updated the flooring to a Pergo Engineered Hardwood throughout the entire area. This floor installed perfectly and the color was absolutely gorgeous.

This was such a fun project to work on and we made some great friends in the process.  We also made a few furry friends on this one!! Thanks so much to our new friends for allowing us to help them make their home an oasis! We can’t wait to hang out.

Also, here are a few of our furry friends we got to hang out with along the way!