My First Home DIY

After 6 LONG months of waiting to close on our house, we finally did it last Friday. We were extremely blessed to move in two months early for free. The previous owners were so kind to do that for us. They were just as impatient as we were to finalize all the paperwork and move in! That aside... closing on the house meant it was okay to tear up the house if we wanted to!

...If you don't want to read this crap and just see the pictures, scroooolll ;).

One thing I noticed when we were house shopping was that I was extremely drawn to kitchens and bathrooms that had dark cabinets. I don't know what it is, but I guess it's more appealing to me because I'm so used to seeing the standard, cheap, not-so-pretty, light brown oak that comes in most places. All the cabinets in our house are in great condition and are of great quality, just not the color I wanted. I figured sometime down the road we could replace/upgrade all our cabinets.. until I found this, while on Pinterest..(of course),DIY Expresso cabinets. Thank you, Monica for sharing this elaborate tutorial.

I followed her directions & they were easy. The most frustrating part for me was the waiting process. I found a lot of other bloggers who did this same tutorial successfully. That gave me hope.
SO... If you want to see how I did it.. here it is.

Here's what you'll need:

Here is a list of everything I bought
Home Depot-
Large Painters Tape $6.58
.94" Painters Tape $3.93
Angled Sanding Block/Sponge $4.97
Tack Cloths 3pk $2.68


Dollar Tree
Packaging Paper
Sandwich Bags
Socks x3
Foam Brush Set(don't recommend)
Vinyl Gloves


Woodcraft-
General Finishes Gel Stain in JAVA- $19.99
General Finishes Polyacrylic Satin- $20.99
Painter's Pyramids- $5.99

Total: About $74

If you're like me and go into Home Depot feeling like you're in another country, just hand an employee a list and they will more than likely be able to easily locate everything for you and you'll be out of there in 10 mins tops!
Also, if you're in the Jacksonville area like me... Woodcraft on Arlington Expressway carries the General Finish brand. Lots of bloggers say that they had to order this online because it's hard to find locally. I didn't see it at Home Depot or Lowes. General Finishes' website has a retail locater and that's how I found Woodcraft. All of Woodcraft's employees were extremely helpful and friendly. Definitely recommend that place!
I started this project on Monday and finished today (Saturday). I'm very pleased with how this came out and I am pretty dang proud of myself for not screwing it up! I can't wait to do this to the master bathroom and the kitchen!
Time to go stare at my bathroom!
Xoxo,
Samantha