Cabinet Transformation

So in my last post I mentioned that we moved to a new house and needed to paint/stain the cabinets.  A few people have asked how I did that, so I thought I'd just blog about it.  Let me start by saying I am by NO means an expert on this.  In fact, I read tons of blogs on how to do this before actually doing it.  And I looked at Pinterest for hours before choosing the color I wanted.  So if you're wanting to do this to your cabinets, please please please do the research before starting.  It's a long endeavor.  This isn't a weekend project. 


This is how our cabinets looked when we moved in.

Yuck.  They were an ugly orange color.  I think it's called 'golden oak' or something gross like that.  Basically it's what the builder puts in their new builds because it's cheap and looks half-way decent.  But totally not my style.  I might have been able to live with them for a while if they were in good condition.  But they weren't.  They were worn and sad looking.  I think the previous owners were rough on them.  I dunno.  But whatevs.  It was time for something fresh and new for our home. 


Since I didn't have an extra few grand just lying around, I decided to just do it myself.  I think our realtor choked when I told him I'd do it myself.  He warned us that he'd seen many kitchens destroyed by a well meaning DIY project.  He didn't know me well.  :)


SO after researching and spending WAY too much time on pinterest, I decided on dark cabinets.  The thing I kept seeing over and over was java gel stain.  So after researching that specific color, I came up with this: General Finished Gel Stain in Java.  I bought it from Amazon, but if you live in DSM you can buy it at The Woodsmith Store on Hickman.  That store is awesomesauce.  Seriously, check it out. 


I wanted to practice some before actually staining our entire kitchen only to find out I hated the color or something.  So I went to the Habitat for Humanity Restore and bought a cheap cabinet door to practice on. 




I tested out two different paint brushes, hence the green tape in the middle. 

After researching a TON, here are the steps I used::


1) use a degreaser/cleaner to get all the gunk off the door.  Seriously until you clean it, you don't realize how gross the doors can get.  Especially the ones around your stove.  All that grease that just sticks to the door will prevent the stain from adhering.  Do yourself a favor and clean it first.  I used Krud Kutter, only because someone else did.  I thought it did a fantastic job.


2) Deglosser.  Skip the sanding.  So many blogs I used said to sand down your doors.  Unless your doors are in super rough shape, skip it.  A deglosser will take off the 'shine' and allow the stain to adhere.  I used Klean Stip Sander Deglosser.  Only because that's what Home Depot had and it was cheap.  A little goes a long way on this one.  Make sure you're in a ventilated area.  I got a little high off the fumes.  :)


3) Start staining.  I highly suggest using gloves.  You're going to end up getting stain on your hands, just accept that.  Unless you want brown nail and cuticles for the next few weeks, buy yourself some gloves.  Just get the cheap box of gloves at the hardware store.  Usually less than $10 for a box of 100. 


4) BE PATIENT!  Let the stain dry before doing a second coat!!  Since we were in the process of painting our entire house, I would do a coat, do something else for a few hours, and then go back for another coat.  I did two coats of gel stain with about 4 hours in-between coats. 




In the process of staining.  Those orange things under the doors are these cool painter's tepees that you use to prop things off the floor.  They were super helpful but are by no means a necessity.



I started out in the garage but it got cold so I brought everything into the living room.  We had already taken out all the carpet so it was the perfect work space.



After staining all the cabinets.  Make sure to tape well! 

5) Top coat.  General Finishes makes several different polyurethane topcoats.  I chose a satin finish, but you can choose semi-gloss, flat, glossy...whatever your heart desires.  I used a brush for this too.  After doing other painting projects I would choose a super smooth small foam roller instead.  I think the finish is a little better with the roller.  Plus it'd be faster. 


6) LET DRY FOR AT LEAST 24 HOURS!  I can not stress enough the importance of allowing adequate dry time.  You've just spent several days doing this project.  The last thing you want is to ruin it in your excitement of being done. 


DONE!  Put everything back in it's place and have a glass of wine.  You deserve it! 


So here are a few tips I learned from my endeavor::


1) take the time to prep properly.  Use painter's tape, clean the cabinets, degloss etc.  It's easy and fairly quick.  You'll be so much happier in the end!
2) buy cheap brushes for the stain.  Some people suggested using the foam brushes.  I didn't like those as well, but that's my preference.  When you practice on a cheap piece of wood see what you like best. The stain WILL NOT come out of the brushes.  So why bother?  Just buy cheap ones and toss them when you're done.
3) don't be rushed.  Make sure you have the time/energy/space to do this.  It's not a weekend project!
4) don't be fooled by "box cabinet transformation" kits you can buy at the hardware store.  It seems like it'd be cheaper/easier but it's not.  Everyone I know who has used the box transformation kits has regretted it.  Within a year it's coming off and looks terrible. 


So here's the finished project:


Full disclosure: this pic was taken after we got new quartz countertops.  SO that's why there's no faucet yet.  And since then we've put in brushed nickel hardware on the doors/drawers.  And we bought all new stainless steel appliances.

Believe me, this is not a difficult project to do.  It's WAY cheaper than buying new cabinets.  And it's awesome knowing I did something myself.  :)

Where'd 2015 go??

So apparently I haven't blogged in over a year.  Sorry about that.  For the 5 people who actually read my blog, they must have thought I died.  Alas, I did not.  We moved.  That's what happened in 2015.  And I changed jobs.  That happened too. 


After over a decade in Ankeny, we decided to move back to the west side of Des Moines.  Joel works over there and the commute was about killing him.  Some days it would take over an hour to get home because of the traffic.  For a small-ish town like DSM, that's a ridiculously long commute.  The school year had already started when we made this decision and we didn't really want to yank the kids out mid-year, so we thought we'd wait until the spring to sell.  Our realtor had other plans.  He strongly urged us to sell in the fall 2014 because the market was so hot and "everyone sells in the spring".  So we did it.  We listed our house.  2 weeks later it sold.  Holy crap nuggets.  I was not prepared for that.  So now what?  We decided to get an apartment in Ankeny for the winter so the kids could finish out the school year, and we could take our sweet time looking for a house. 


6 months in an apartment with 2 kids was...well, interesting.  The apartment itself was fine.  It was a two bdrms/two bath so the kids had to share a room.  Luckily it was a large second bedroom so they kinda had their own wing of the room.  And we had a first floor apartment, which I didn't know if I'd like, but after moving all our stuff in and then our again 6 months later, I was glad for no stairs. 


So we found a house in Waukee that we loved and moved in around Memorial Day.  It needed a little work, but it was in the location we wanted and priced well enough for us to do all the work it needed.  We closed on the house but stayed in our apartment for a few more weeks in order to get the work done.  The house needed painted all throughout, new carpet, a deep clean, and cabinet painting/staining.  (My next post will be about the staining I did).


So we moved in and love it.  Our neighborhood is fabulous.  There are tons of kids about our kids' ages so they made friends really quickly.  The kids love their new school.  So all in all, it was a great decision to move to Waukee.


As far as my job goes, in March I made the tough decision to leave The Iowa Clinic and take a job with the VA Hospital in DSM.  My new job allows me to be home with the kids before and after school.  I work part-time, just 10-2.  I'm learning new things and getting a great respect for the men and women who have served our country.  It truly takes a great person to fight for our freedom and potentially give their life for our country.  Most of the patients I see are from the Vietnam War era.  We do still have a few WWII vets, and we're getting more younger guys from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. 


So that's what's been happening for the past year.  The kids are great.  They're growing like weeds. 

Summer FLEW by!

SO it's been a busy summer, to say the least.  Soon after my last post (where I broke my ass), my entire family went to Alaska.  Seriously.  My kids spent 2 weeks at Joel's parent's house while Joel and I went frolicking through the Alaskan tundra.  We joined my parents, siblings with their spouses, and my aunt/uncle (ancle for short), cousins, and a cousin-in-law.  We took at 7 day cruise, then an additional 4 days in Denali National Park.  It was seriously beautiful up there.  Here's a few pics to enjoy.

By siblings and me with a really awkward pose that my sister insisted would be funny. Sure.

My cousin Mindy and me

This was taken at approximately 11pm.  Alaska never gets dark in the summer!  

Waterfall from our floatplane as we touched down in a fjord.  So cool!

I don't remember where this was but how pretty!

Glacier.  They're dirtier than you'd think

Moose and calf in Denali National Park

So that was our trip to Alaska.

And then July and August seemed to fly by.  We did random things, like a trip to Minnesota and lots of visits to the pool (I did not repeat the death slide).  

Then school started in August.  Noah is in kindergarten this year; Hannah's in 3rd grade.  They're at a new school again this year since the boundary lines were redrawn in Ankeny.  It has not been a smooth transition.  There's a huge difference in the school we were used to and this one.  First of all, this school is a MUCH older building and I'm pretty sure whomever designed it was on drugs.  The layout makes no sense to me.  I have yet to actually know how to find my kids' classrooms.  I just wander around until something looks familiar or someone asks if I need help.  And then there's the communication.  We were used to the teachers and PTO letting us know of every single thing going on in the school.  Now it's like pulling teeth to get any info.  For the kindergarten info meeting, we were given 3 different times for the meeting.  Same thing for the 3rd grade meeting.  Joel actually tracked down the principal and told him this was unacceptable.  The principal promised they'd do better.  I'm not optimistic.  

So now we're in to October.  And the big news for this month is: WE'RE MOVING!  Yes, we are selling our house and moving to the west side of Des Moines, probably a suburb.  It was a really tough decision.  But my job was just changed to bit to where now I'm having to drive out to the West office 2, sometimes 3 weeks a month.  Joel drives out there every day for work.  It's getting to be a long commute, especially with winter coming.  And with all the problems we've had with school this year, it became evident it was time for a change.  So our house is for sale.  It's been on the market for about a week and we've had several showings.  Let me just say that keeping the house spotless with 2 kids and a dog is super fun.  But it's what you have to do.  Then we'll go to an apartment (ick) until the end of the school year and we know exactly which area of town we want to live.  

So that's what's happening in our lives right now.  Nothing earth shattering, but just some randomness.  :)

The Slide of Death

So a few years ago I posted about the kiddie slide at the local pool and the horrible, tragic events that happened.  If you haven't read that yet or just want to refresh your memory, click here to be reminded of my disaster.

OK, now that you've had a good laugh at my expense, here's an update:

The kiddie slide has it in for me.  Truly.

Ankeny has 2 water parks.  The original disaster happened at that 'old' water park.  Now there's a new fancy water park closer to our house that has more wonderful, fantastic slides and a lazy river for those of us who'd rather just sit on a giant donut and float like a ball of lard.

And it also has a kiddie slide EXACTLY like the one from the other water park.

Duh, duh, duuuhhhh.  (that was supposed to be creepy, foreshadowing music)

This year we bought a pool pass since the kids are old enough to actually enjoy swimming and not drown.  Plus, it's that why there's lifeguards?  So one evening Joel and I packed up the kids and went to the new pool.  Up until this point I'd avoided that kiddie slide like the plague.  This night I was not so fortunate.

The kids begged me to go with them.  I tried so say no, I really did.  I tried to get them to go down with daddy and not me.  Daddy wasn't good enough.  Didn't I see all the other parents going down with their kids, laughing and smiling at the fun that was had?  Didn't I want to do that too?  Nope.  I'm a fun hater.

But alas, I gave in to peer pressure.  The slide was a duplicate to the one where I'd almost accidentally killed someone.  But I was determined to show that slide who's boss.

So up we went.

I made sure the girls were tucked in tight.  I tried to sit in the middle where the most water was running.  All seemed well.  We go down and BAM.  Something happened.  Something bad happened.  It was like a hot poker had been shoved directly in my rear end.  WHAT JUST HAPPENED???!!  I just sat there and stared for a moment.  By now the lifeguard is eyeballing me like I'm insane. Joel is giving me a strange look, and the kids are yelling "again, mommy!  Again!"

I rolled on to my knees and crawled over to Joel.  He's still giving me a weird look.  I'm fine, I tell him.  I landed funny and must have bruised something.  But hey, the girls stayed in place!  I'm fine.

I wasn't fine.  What happened?  I broke my coccyx, the tailbone.  In other words, I broke my ass on the kiddie slide.

And that kids, is why mommy doesn't ride the death slide anymore.

I'm going to make someone mad...

So, lately something's been bugging me.  To be fair this has been bugging me for a while, but I have nothing if not restraint (HA!) so here it is...

Why to parents-to-be think that ultrasound exists only to show them the gender of their child?  It's ridiculous.  In the past week, I've had multiple facebook friends post how many days until they find out the gender of their baby.  3 more days!  2 more days!  Any guesses?  Yea, it's either a boy or a girl.  Nailed it!

I'm a sonographer.  Most people who read this blog know that.  Most people who find this out for the first time get a grin on their faces and say "Do you look at babies!?  I would LOVE to look at babies all day!  It looks so easy!"   I just smile and say no.  I actually work in radiology so I rarely scan babies.  There's a reason for this.  I'm trained how to scan babies.  What does that mean?  It means I'm trained to scan every single inch of your unborn baby to look for abnormalities.  Big scary names, like anencephaly, trisomy 13-18-21, spina bifida, renal agenesis, polydactly, VSD, and the list goes on.  And yes, I'm also trained how to look for the gender.  I choose not to work in a prenatal office because of so many reasons.

While you and your partner/family/friends come in all excited to find out if it's a boy or girl, let me give you a few tips about what the sonographer is thinking at that moment::

 - why did you bring 10 people with you?  It's distracting and you DO NOT want me distracted right now.
- your toddler doesn't care if there's a baby in your belly.  Saying "watch the movie on the screen" doesn't help.  Queen Elsa isn't going to pop up and sing "Let it Go".  Bringing video games only adds to the distraction.
 - If the first thing you say is "can you tell what it is yet?", it's going to be LAST thing I look at.
- I'm concentrating on looking for abnormalities.  You may not be able to see what I see, but that doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing.
 - the amount of training and testing sonographers have undergone is more than you imagine.  Making comments like "I don't see it" doesn't make it happy.
 - you may have friends who have 3D/4D pictures, pretty cutesy pictures of their babies.  That's great.  Not all babies are photogenic.  We can't literally reach up in there and rotate the baby to be in a better position.  Believe me, we'd love to.
-This may be the highlight of your day.  It's not ours.  You are one in a line of other patients we see and we must be fully devoted to find any abnormality in each and every situation.  Don't mistake our concentration for being unfriendly.
- You're expecting everything to be fine.  The reality is that it may not be.  Do you really want an audience for that?  Think this through before you invite both sets of grandparents, aunt/uncles, and friends to this event.  Instead, how about they come visit your when you actually deliver the baby.  Then they can see the baby in all it's glory.

Now that I've pissed off every expectant mother in the area, let me say this.  Having a baby is a glorious, exciting event.  Focus on what's important!  Planning a life for this child is SO much more important than whether or not the baby has a penis.  I understand the desire to decorate the nursery and buy clothes, believe me I get it!  But when you go in for your ultrasound, please remember that sonographers are not photographers.  We may joke that we are but in reality, we're the ones looking for problems.  If we don't see it, the doctor doesn't know about it.  Try to remember that.

{Another} Epic Fail...

So, I've already acknowledged and accepted the fact that I'm not winning any parenting awards.  I will never be mom of the year.  I don't make homemade crafty things.  I don't have a snack waiting for my kids when they get home from school.  I've been known to make pancakes for supper.  I don't think I'm a bad parent, just not Suzy Homemaker.


A few weeks ago Noah was snack boy for his preschool.  What is snack boy, you ask?  Well, all the kids are assigned a day every few months to bring a snack to share with the class.  During snack time that child will help distribute the snacks and be the 'snack helper'.  Apparently it's a big deal when you're 4.  I dunno.

Noah had already been snack boy in the fall but I totally stole someone else's idea of making little baggies of Golden Graham cereal, mini-marshmallows, and chocolate chips...smores in a bag.  This time I wanted to do something more original.  That should have been my first inkling there's a problem; I was trying too hard.  I scoured Pinterest and googled ideas for preschool snacks.  One idea that kept popping up was puppy chow.  Ya know, that glorious snack food made with rice chex, chocolate and powdered sugar?  I have always loved the stuff and since Noah loves anything both sweet and messy, it seemed like a great idea.

So one evening I made a ginormous batch of the stuff, packaged it up in little individualized baggies, and brought it to Noah's school.  He was so excited.  He grinned from ear to ear and announced to his teacher he was snack boy and we were having PUPPY FOOD!  The teacher just laughed.

Off I went on my cloud of joyous accomplishment.  I felt like I had finally done something great.

Then I got the call.

It was the preschool.  Did I use peanut butter in the puppy chow?  Well yes, that's how you make it.  Uh...one of the kids in Noah's class has a peanut allergy.  So, they can't serve the snack.

OH mother trucker.  Seriously?  ONE kid is allergic and you have to scrap the entire thing?  Apparently some peanut allergies are just that severe.  I know for a fact that the mother of this child sends his own snack every day to prevent any reaction, but whatever.  Even the scoopful of peanut butter that's mixed with the chocolate then smothered in powdered sugar can cause a problem.

Bottom line, they couldn't serve the snack.  I had failed my son.  Since NO ONE in my immediate circle of family or friends has a nut allergy it didn't even cross my mind that I needed to be aware of that.  Thinking back, at orientation I'm pretty sure the teachers did mention there was a nut allergy but really, who listens that closely!?  I'm pretty sure I had to pee during that part so my brain wasn't functioning properly.

When I picked up Noah that day he was devastated.  He cried and cried the entire way home.  "THEY SAID IT WASN'T SAFE!" Oops.  My bad.  Chalk that one up to another mommy failure.

But we all ate puppy chow for the next week, peanut butter and all.  And it was delicious.   And sometimes that was supper.  Peanut butter's a protein, right?  ;)

We done broke the bed!

Now before you go getting all sorts of crazy x-rated, porn filled thoughts, let me clarify that the bedframe was a piece of junk. 

So here's what happened::

Years ago Joel and I upgraded from our tiny full-sized bed to a king.  Mini-rant: who decided that taking a twin-sized bed and adding exactly 6 inches would somehow fit 2 adults?  I mean, an adult and a shitzhu...maybe.  2 adults:  Heck no!  Mini-rant over.
So we enjoyed our spacious king bed for a few years then when I screwed up my back (at work! Get your mind out of the gutter!) we needed a new mattress.  A friend of ours mentioned the sleep number bed so we decided to get one.  We loved it.  Joel likes to sleep on a concrete block hard mattress, but I like a softer one so this worked out well.  We bought a cheap metal frame and gerry-rigged it to fit the slightly-less-cheap-looking headboard and footboard.  Pretty quickly we realized that was not the brightest idea.  One night CLUNK, the frame broke.  Being the cheap thrify people we are, we stuck boxes under the mattress to support us and lived happily ever after. . .

Until...

Valentine's weekend.  Now, mind you Joel and I have been married for almost 13 years.  The most mind-boggling action that bed gets is when our kids come and jump on it.  Why is Valentine's weekend important?  Two reasons.  It all happened on a weekend, and that Monday was President's Day. (Rememeber this because it's going to be important later)

So we finally decided to get a new frame.  The box that was holding up a corner of Joel's side had died a sad death and now that corner was lower than the rest of the bed.  Now since this didn't affect me I was happy to just let it go, but Joel kept having to scoot closer to me at night, lest he fall completely off the bed.  This simply will not do.  So our Valentine's plans?  Buy a bed frame.  How romantic. 

To swap out the frames we had to deflate the sleep-number mattress.  If you don't know much about sleep-number beds, basically it's a really expensive blow up mattress.  So we deflated it, tore apart the old frame, cleaned under the bed (found Noah's pacifier from 3 years ago!  And about 14 socks, none of which matched), and put together the new frame.  Now came the re-inflating.  Except the pump didn't work.  What now?  The bed won't re-inflate?  Nope.  The mattress looked like two saggy pieces of fabric laying on top of the box springs.  Kinda like old floppy boobs. 

Joel got online and tried to find a solution.  He ended up calling the company and asking what to do.  They're solution?  Replace the pump.  Ok, great.  Since the bed was still under warranty (gotta love those 20 year warranties), they would send us a new pump.  Only caveat?  This was on a Sunday.  Remember how I said to keep in mind this was a weekend with a holiday on Monday?  Nothing gets shipped on a Sunday and Monday was a federal holiday.  Which means our brand-new-life-inflating-pump would not even leave the warehouse in Salt Lake City, Utah until Tuesday.  Even with 2-day shipping, that means THURSDAY before we get it.  That's 4 days away!  What are we going to do? 

Luckily we have a spare bedroom...in the basement...with our old full-size bed. 

Seriously?  Crappity crap crap.

We crawled in bed and immediately fell back out.  How in the world did we used to sleep in this thing?  I felt like I was squished in a clown car.  He pulled the covers, I pulled back.  Do we sleep face to face breathing in each other's carbon dioxide?  Or butt-to-butt so every movement makes me giggle like a 6-year-old?  We finally settled on butt-to-butt, but that meant there was no space between.  Tinka tried to breach that wall but gave up and settled on the floor.  Poor dog.  Joel told me the next morning that he woke up at one point on his stomach with Tinka on his back.  That dog won't give up! 

Over the next 3 nights we had a constant war of blankets and space.  It was an epic battle of wills.  I WILL have more than a corner of this blanket or I WILL shoot you.  Because when it's 3am and you're still wide awake, violence is the only option. 

Finally Thursday came around and we received our new pump.  We made those saggly old boobs look like they got some implants. 

And we slept happily ever after. 

The End.