Summer Slipped Away

 My summer to do list was pretty much a failure.  One of the things on the list was to update this blog, and clearly that task did not get finished.  I was also going to catch up on my scrap booking, update Luke's baby book, and organize the school room.  These items are still on the pink sticky note posted next to my desk, without being crossed off.

The only big things that I accomplished were cleaning out the boys' rooms and organizing two bookshelves.  And I mean big time cleaning of the boy's rooms.  We threw away several big bags of trash and went through all of their clothes and toys.  We gave away several more bags of stuff to friends and one of our favorite resale stores.  We also dusted, vacuumed, and cleaned under beds and in every corner.  So I felt really good about that, but then I was too burned out to finish doing the same in the school room.  The only reason that two bookshelves got done was out of necessity.  I had to make room for our new set of school books for this year.

So my nice, relaxing summer didn't exactly go as I had dreamed, but there were many shining moments and we made some great memories.

We finished last school year in early May.  I spent the month doing some cooking that I don't normally have time to do, including lots of breakfasts and desserts.  My Pioneer Woman cookbook got quite a workout.  Some of our favorites were vanilla scones, French breakfast puffs, Italian cream cake, and blueberry cobbler and cinnamon rolls.  I used a lot of butter this month!

June was full of activities for the boys.  Zack and Michael performed in their annual dance concert.  It was a big deal.  We were thrilled to have family and friends there to cheer for them.  Nick and Zack spent a week at the Pines Catholic Camp.  Nick spent a week at Youth Leader training.  We also squeezed in a few trips to the water park.

In July we had an epic family vacation.  My side of the family stayed in a huge rental house outside of Bastrop, TX for 4 days, 22 of us!  We had a double baptism for my niece and nephew.  My brother rented an inflatable water slide.  There was lots of eating, dancing, relaxing, and laughing.  

July was also consumed with lots of youth group and church activities.  We did service projects every Monday, VBS every evening for a week, and our 3-night summer lock in.  And our monthly bake sale and car wash.  And Michael had 2 weeks of theater camp.  Did I mention July was a busy month for us?  But it was lots of fun.  I love spending time with our church youth group, both the kids and adults!

Before we started school the first week of August, Nick and I went with our youth group high school students to the Dallas Catholic Youth Conference.  It was an amazing weekend retreat and great way to end our summer.  We are now on our 5th week of school, and we seem to be back in a good routine.  Last week I spent 3 afternoons and evening freezer cooking.  I've never done this before, but I think we will like it.  I was able to put over 40 meals in the freezer!  Some are fully cooked and just need to be heated, need to be thawed and cooked, and some are all ready to go in the crock pot for the day.  I think this will help as we dive in to our full schedule of school, soccer, dance, faith formation classes, theater classes, and preschool for Luke.

Cabinet Transformation

We decided to give our kitchen a facelift with our tax refund money.  A few years ago we had textured and painted over the wallpaper and put in a new backsplash of ceiling tin tiles.  So now we were ready for phase 2 of the kitchen update.  We have ordered a new counter top along with a new sink and cooktop.  We didn’t necessarily want to replace the cabinets because it is not in the budget, but I thought it would be nice to freshen them up a bit.  I had decided to use the Rustoleum Cabinet Transformation Kit.  For our size kitchen we needed the large kit, which retails for around $150.  There is one kit for dark colors and another for light, and once you choose your color you have the base coat tinted at the store.  I was having trouble choosing a color because I couldn’t decide what would look best with our wall color, white backsplash, and new counter top .

I had already found a new faucet on the clearance shelf at Home Depot to go with the new sink.  It was originally $75, and it was marked down to $20!  I was really excited about this!  The next day I was in Lowes, and stumbled upon the Rustoleum cabinet kit on the oops paint shelf.  It was the large kit, already tinted to Quilters White, and it was marked down from $149 to $75! So Quilters White it would be!

The kit comes with a deglosser, scrub pads, the base coat (tinted to your color choice), a decorative glaze, rags for wiping the glaze, a protective top coat, stir sticks, and an instruction book and DVD.  I had to buy drop cloths, painters tape, paint brushes, and gloves.  We rolled our ping pong table inside and covered it with a drop cloth to use as our work surface for the cabinet drawers and doors.  We soon realized with 23 doors and 8 drawers that we couldn’t do them all together and would have to do them in two groups.  After removing the hinges from the doors it was time to start the transformation process.

The first step was to scrub everything clean with soapy water, wipe with a damp cloth, and wipe with a dry cloth.  Next we applied the deglosser with the scrub pads in the kit.  The deglosser helps the base coat to adhere well without having to strip the original paint or stain.  After applying the deglosser, again we wiped everything with a damp cloth then a dry cloth.  After letting that dry for an hour it was time to apply the base coat, wait 2-3 hours, and apply a second base coat, again allowing it to dry 2-3 hours.  At this point I thought they looked great – it was all clean and white!  But with 4 boys I didn’t really want everything white.

 The decorative glaze is optional, but that was part of the reason I liked the kit in the first place.  To apply the glaze you just paint in on with a brush and then wipe it off.  The kit has 2 big rolls of rags to use for this, and the DVD was good at explaining how to wipe the glaze to get the desired effect.  I decided not to glaze the backs of the cabinet doors, so they are just white.  After you apply the glaze you need to wait 8 hours before the next step – the protective coat.  You just brush this clear coat on with a paint brush.  After 12 hours you can finally reinstall the transformed cabinets. 

I am really happy with how the whole thing turned out.  The instructions were easy to follow, and there were plenty of supplies.  In fact we have enough deglosser, paint, and glaze to update our bathroom cabinets in the future if we want to.  It did take me longer than I expected.  I thought it would be about a 3 day job, and it ended up taking about 6.  We had around 150 square feet of cabinets to cover.  I think if we had a smaller kitchen or if we had enough work space to paint all of the cabinet doors and drawers at the same time it would have taken 3-4 days.  I’m glad we did this project and almost feel like we have a new kitchen!