When we last spoke about the cabinets, we were waiting for them to be stained and finished. Well, now they have been finished. But there is quite the story.
Plan A: The first guy that was supposed to stain and finish the cabinets…. how do I say this?… well, he left the country. That’s about all we know.
Plan B: The sub-contractor we were going to use to do the drywall tape & bed and texture agreed to stain the cabinets and finish them. Well, first he was delayed because of an unfortunate incident involving him being pulled over and having an outstanding warrant for a previous ticket that he thought was taken care of. That set him back a couple of days and caused a scheduling crunch with some other jobs he had that were set to start.
He was going to do all the wall texture first then the cabinets and was going to work through the weekend to get it all done. In the midst of that weekend, however, he had a family emergency that set us back another day. He finally finished the wall texture and when we were able to look at it the next morning, there were so many things that needed to be fixed that we called the general contractor out to take a look before he started on the cabinets. I wasn’t there, but apparently the general and the sub got into quite the heated discussion (so much so that Mike left the room) and the sub walked off the job.
On to…
Plan C: Our general contractor was on top of the situation and brought in another sub that afternoon to take a look at what we had, what needed to be fixed and try to get us on his schedule. A couple of days later they started work and were done with the drywall work (thankfully) before my daughter’s birthday slumber party.
The next Monday, they came in to do the cabinets. We were pretty much gone most of the day to work and school but once Mike got home with the kids after school and smelled the fumes from the polyurethane he began to wonder if the house would be inhabitable that night. I was with my son at t-ball practice (about 5:30 pm) when Mike called and said we definitely needed to find a hotel.
SO that day, we had work/school, daughter’s softball practice at 4, son’s t-ball practice at 5, Mike & daughter had Bible study that night in which Mike was leading the large group for the kids AND we had to pack up stuff and dogs and find a place to sleep. And everything was going to plan. Except that as I was at the hotel getting Nathan ready for bed before we went and picked up Sarah at Bible study, I pulled back the sheets on the bed and saw…. a bug.
Mike convinced me later that it was not a bed bug, but it was a bug in the bed nonetheless. So we had to go back home, and get our own air mattress for the kids and sheets for the bed and the kids didn’t get to bed that night until probably after 10 pm.
On a school night.
Sigh.
We didn’t even try to get to school on time the next day.
The point is that finally, after 2 weeks with my kitchen encased in plastic and a house covered in dust, the cabinets were stained and finished. It was worth it, because this was the result. They look great.
And there is another little surprise with the cabinets that you’ll have to wait until later to see.
Oh the suspense… right? :)
So, lessons learned from the staining of the cabinets and our series of unfortunate events experience:
A) Don’t plan on sleeping in your house after the cabinets have been stained. Plan ahead and make other sleeping arrangements ahead of time.
B) Either remove everything from your refrigerator or plan on tossing out most everything after all is said and done. Any open food will have a faint to strong polyurethane flavor to it.
C) Just go with the flow when you end up on Plan C (or D or E) for your remodeling project. Because it’s bound to happen. Remember: It’s better to have it done right than done right now.
You can view a list of all my kitchen updates here.
