Finally...

Painted the toe kick on my kitchen cabinets. Why did it take me so long to do this?

I like how the room is coming together. Lots of other details to come, I'll keep sharing photos as I change things.

*AND* I painted a kitchen cabinet door without realizing that I'd left a bunch of BIG DRIPS in the paint. Imagine my shock when I came in the morning, flipped the light switch and there were THOSE DRIPS! *Horrors!* I finally got that door sanded and repainted today, and who knows... I might even get it hung up where it goes! Maybe even this evening! Now wouldn't that be something!

Here's to finishing up the details,
-Carmen Rose

Painting Kitchen Cabinets

Today was a busy one in Studio B, one project all day long.   (ONE! project - this is not how my brain works, it was uncomfortable but I survived.)  My Mom came to visit and we worked on kitchen cabinets for...ever! We worked on two (of the six) sections of the kitchen today.  I love my house, but whoever designed this kitchen was loco!

Here’s the process: First off, sand the surface of the wood cabinets. After the first three sections, I learned to do that part outside as much as possible. (Brrr!)  Secondly, wipe with TSP cleaner. Third, paint with serious oil based primer. And finally… paint topcoat. And in some cases… another top coat. My part time job is “Drip Catcher.” We worked on 12 doors and 11 drawers and the cabinets they came from. Plus the range hood has been removed. (The new one is in a box in the living room.)  I’ve got two extra tables and two saw horses with boards on them in my kitchen with cabinet doors laying out to dry. Tight squeeze! I think the drawers are ready for the hardware and they will be complete. Maybe I should wait to say that until I’ve seen them in daylight, but I *think* they look ok for now.

Here's the "Before" photo of this section... though it's not a real before photo because that's my new floor. I suppose it's more of a process photo. I love how much morning sun my kitchen gets!  And I love my new floor!

My Maternal Unit painted while lard but Canine Unit kept an eye on us.

Temporary painting headquarters!  (WET paint!)

Drawers getting their new color.

There is only one thing left to say at this point.  "Will this project EVER be complete?!?"  Ok, ok, I'll have some faith.  (It will end, right?  Someday??)  Please?

O, and my hinges have been shipped!  Yes!  They are in Florida tonight.  I'm still REALLY hoping they are here by Saturday so I can get my doors up before my guests arrive Saturday evening.  But if not it will be ok, the kitchen looks kinda cool with all the upper cabinets wide open.  I expected to hate it, but there's something about it that I really like.  Everything is so "right there!"  It's kind of handy!  Maybe I'll just put the doors back on the base cabinets and leave the tops open?  Tee he, after all the work I put into those cabinet knobs... the doors WILL go back up.  (Eventually!) 

I think I need a reminder.  Why am I doing this again?  Hmmm...

 Hmmm... that's helping.  More please?

 

 I'm beginning to remember...

 

 Ah yes, THAT'S it.

I remember now.

Happy Creating,

-Carmen Rose

Curry and Cabinet Knobs

I struggled today to get anything done. I have a food allergy that sometimes takes me down a notch. I didn’t know I was consuming the one thing that always kicks my bum, and I really didn’t think it would be a big deal. The next morning the first round of reactions hit and then I felt ok for a while. In the evening the second round hit and I was still feeling it this morning. Now I’m just really worn out. I feel like I was in a car accident.

I didn’t feel like doing much of anything today, but I was hungry for curry chicken salad. I love everything curry, all the different kinds and colors that I’ve ever tried have turned out to be soul mates to my taste buds. So I picked up some chickens at the store and then went home to make stuff. I roasted the two chickens in the oven, and made some chicken stock. When the chicken cooled, I put some of it aside for meals later this week and cut up the rest for chicken salad. I made curry chicken salad using this recipe from Ina Garten. I had to find “Major Grey’s Chutney” at the store. That was easier than I expected it to be. It’s there with the other dressings, sauces, etc. I saw Ina make this on her Barefoot Contessa show this week and I’ve been craving it ever since. It turned out to be as delicious as I expected it to be. I subbed in seedless grapes instead of raisins and it was wonderful. I may add some heat to the leftovers, this kind of thing is always better with a little kick! I think it would be really wonderful in the summer.

I combined the chicken stock with a pureed butternut squash, loaded in some veggies and chicken and made a soup that turned out to be pretty good. I pushed it too much though, I’m pretty much toast at this point.

Oh, and I covered a few other cabinet knobs with polymers. They’re so fun to do that I end up making more not because I need them in the kitchen, but because I enjoy making them.  And it seems that the more I make, the more they evolve and the designs get more interesting.  I'm not out of old knobs to cover, so I suppose that's it for a while unless I find something else to cover.  

I picked up more paint at the store this morning, thinking that I may need to rattle can my old hinges just to get my kitchen put back together. I sent another email to the company that has screwed up my order of hinges and knobs. Still no reply from them. So far I’m not impressed. I’m still hoping that they’ll make it right. I guess we’ll see. I’ll keep ya posted.

I'm planning to curl up and take it easy for the evening and hope I can get some of the toxins out of my system and get back to normal. 

Health and Wholeness to each of you,

(cause nobody likes feeling bad!)

-Carmen Rose

Quilts and Hinges on the Doors

In between all the things that I worked on last week, I started a little quilt. Sometimes it's hard to focus on the things I NEED to do, so I started a little project that I WANTed to do. It's not finished...

and may never be finished... but it's been a lovely little project to keep me going in between all the other stuff.

I have nothing new to report on the hinges for my kitchen cabinets. I emailed the company on Friday about the return and I have ordered the replacement pieces - no response to either one. If I don't hear something from them on Monday then I'll have to give some thought as to how to proceed. At this point they have my money and I have a big heavy box of product that I can't use. Not exactly the kind of thing that equals customer satisfaction.

I have guests coming next weekend. So if I continue to work on more of the kitchen and take more doors off their hinges to paint them, then that just means that much more of my kitchen is LEANING instead of usable. I've got a big kitchen, but the last thing I need is to have guests here when it's in a condition where I can't actually use what I have. It's becoming a frustration. I suppose when/if the hinges do finally come, it will be like Christmas at my house. I'm really tempted to rattle can the old hinges and be done with it. I've tried that before and it doesn't really work all that well, but... at least I'd be able to get the doors back up where they go.

So here's to hinges on the doors of our lives, otherwise it's a bit hard to tell what doors are open and what doors are closed.
Grace,
-Carmen Rose

The HINGES are FINALLY here

I met the Post Lady on the sidewalk in front of the house, I'd been listening for the mail truck.  I was Soooo excited that the hinges had finally come... I danced with the box into my kitchen, grabbed a knife and opened the box to survey my new kitchen finery...  (which would make it possible to actually install all the doors that are LEANING against something in my kitchen right now!)

And I took a look at these... and quickly realized that they are the WRONG HINGES! O Bother! The are flush mount, I need inset hinges. These have a little bend, and the screw plate comes father in on the door. Blast!  Blast!  Blast!

I ordered these bad boys on December 27th, they didn't get here until today. Now... I'm wondering how long it will take to get the hinges that I wanted, and that I thought I was getting.

Now let me clarify.  This IS the product that I ordered. When I realized my mistake, I emailed the company and asked that they trade out what I had ordered for the other style. They emailed back and said that would be fine. I thought we had it all worked out. Only problem... they shipped the order instead of the update. Sad really, what a waste of time. I'd really like to get my cabinets put back together so things are usable again. I have a great kitchen, that I'd like to USE!

And I'm really really hoping that this second order doesn't take 18 DAYS to ship, that is TOO LONG unless they are actually making them from scratch. So at this point I'm not terribly impressed. Their website says they don't take returns without authorization... so it will be interesting to see if customer service can redeem themselves on this. I'll keep ya posted.

Thankfully, in the same box were some wonderful cabinet knobs, they are PERFECT for my lower cabinets and drawers and I LURVE them! Thing is, now that I've made polymer clay covered knobs for the upper cabinets, that changes the number of these cool "oil rubbed bronze" ones that I need... so I'm ordering more of those as well.  Can't wait to see it all come together!  Sometime.  Hopefully this year. 

I've picked out my range.  I have chosen well... it's a thing of beauty.  One catch.  I want to cook with gas, our range is electric.  It's going to cost me a variety of limbs to get gas to the house, and I haven't seen the contract yet so I don't even know if the price I was quoted gets the fuel to the house, or into the house to the range (and future gas log fireplace upstairs.)  Hmm... decisions, decisions.  I do SO love cooking with gas...  and I have my shiny new range all picked out...  And then the old harvest gold one can go to the basement to be used in the studio and as a backup.

Mies Van der Rohe said "God is in the details."  Perhaps.  All I know is that I love it when a plan comes together.  And having the doors installed where they go will be WONDERFUL!  I can't complain, there are so many that have it so much worse than me. 

A little unhinged, but counting my blessings,

-Carmen Rose

This Again? (Re)painting Kitchen Cabinet Doors

I had a coat of paint and a coat of primer on these kitchen cabinet doors, and some weird discoloration was bleeding through. So after a trip back to the paint store for another gallon of special stain blocking primer, I'm back at it again.

These doors are wood with the original finish, cleaned with that alphabet soup stuff (TSP? STP? TPS?) sanded, primed, painted... and then primed and painted again. Yeah, complete overkill. Here's hoping that nothing bleeds through this time! That's the doors from the first section of uppers. Lots more to go!

Still waiting very impatiently on the hinges to arrive. Soon I hope?

A friend of mine was here today to have her hair colored so I painted her hair and wrapped the bits up in foil. It had not occurred to me how similar that is to some of the other things I do, like dying fabric or any kind of repetitive pattern making or even the act of painting with a paint brush. But most of my artistic projects don't talk while I'm working on them! (At least not to an extent that I'm willing to admit to.) =)

I was thinking today about how unusual this January has been. Usually it's my one chance during the year to really dig in and work on an art project that I wouldn't ordinarily get to do. One that isn't about making a product to sell but more about meeting the need to create. Usually it's a time when I get to be really focused and shut out the world for a while. My dogs and the wood stove keep me company and I love snow and seeing the mountains in the distance, these things are good for the soul. This January has been busy and I've been into a variety of interesting things and still no significant time in my quilt studio. I would like to make some time for some very "outside the box" projects that are percolating, we'll see how far I get on that but some of the ideas really have my juices flowing! And I have a one person art show coming up sometime this Spring, more on that later. And there is an opening this Friday evening for a group show that includes my work, and an artist friend is going to come spend the day with me in my studios Friday as well. Heaven only knows what we'll get into! It's no ordinary January, but that's ok. Nothing is ever really ordinary around here anyway.

So from an uncommon artist to my uncommon readers: Happy Creating!
-Carmen Rose

Ta Da! The Polymer Knobs are Done!

I now have enough polymer covered knobs finished to complete the upper cabinets in my kitchen, YAY! I have a few extras and another project in mind for them. I baked them in my little polymer oven, baked them hanging right on the rack. It was as if that little wire shelf was made exactly for that purpose.

Here they are, and that one on the lower right just shows the knob that is underneath the polymers.

I'm looking forward to seeing these on my cabinets!  I suppose it's time to get the painting completed and hope that the hinges get here sometime this year. 

Oh you know you have to try this!

-Carmen Rose

Polymer Clay Cabinet Knobs - a knobby tutorial

Kitchen cabinet knobs in the making. It's a surprisingly simple process, here are a few photos to show you what I did. If you've got some basic polymer cane building skills, then these will be pretty easy.

I cut out a round of polymer to cover the knob

and wrapped it around the old kitchen knobs that I took off the cabinets before we started this little painting project.

I wanted the back to be free of polymers since I think that's the part that will take most of the wear and tear on these over the years.

The shape shows through, but the texture didn't really show up in the covered knob.

I sliced a simple cane and arranged the first row of petals.

Added some texture with a little ball shaped tool.

I sliced another cane thin, added those on top, overlapping some.

Then adding some texture to that layer.

I cut a different cane to go in the middle.

Then I ran a fine fine polymer snake around that and added some little flat back Swarovski crystals.

And that's how it looks. 

Here's one of my favorites, this blue matches the kitchen walls and I really like how the cane turned out.

Here are a few really ultra simple spiral canes.  Think jelly roll, very easy to make but they really can be cute!

And these are the ones I have so far.  I have 60 doors and drawers in my kitchen (when I met this kitchen I knew it was perfect for me!) so doing one of these buggas for each of them just seems like overkill.  At this point I'm only going to do the upper cabinets and maybe the knobs on the pantry doors, and then evaluate things from there.

I'm still waiting very impatiently for the new hinges to come, the new hood and the new faucet are here... but the hinges... the one thing standing between me and having doors on my cabinets again...  Argh!  Hurry UP!

You really gotta try this fun project, then post photos!

Happy Creating,

-Carmen Rose 

Polymers and Cabinet Knobs

I waged a little war with my body today and lost... so I did more sleeping than working. I've been thinking for a few days about covering my cabinet hardware with polymers inspired by the work of Mary Walsh. So yesterday I started mixing and conditioning the polymers until I had a broad group of colors to choose from.

Then I started covering the old knobs. When I get the chance I'll upload the other photos and give some of the step by step action. It's not difficult at all, maybe a bit on the tedious side. Mine are pretty simple but I'm pleased so far.

I'm two short at the moment, but I wanted to make extra so I could chose out my favorites. And I'm only doing the upper cabinets, I'll see how that looks and then evaluate what needs to happen with the rest. In a kitchen with 60 cabinet doors and drawer fronts, it's unlikely that I would do them all. I've got new knobs and hinges ordered, it's just taking them a really long time to get here. I'm really impatient to see how it's going to look! Next week I'll expect to get back to the kitchen painting, we'll see. The new hood and faucet are here, I am waiting on someone to have the time to give them a little TLC.  Well... the ol bod still isn't cooperating, so I'll write more another time.

Happy Creating,
-Carmen Rose

Knobby Inspiration

Somehow in the midst of things, I ran across an artist making polymer clay kitchen hardware. It was an interesting idea and I kinda thought it would be nice but not really for me. Too tedious. However, as I’ve been enjoying my partially painted kitchen with guests here… and the old pulls were just sitting there… (and the new ones have not arrived yet) I started to think that it might be kind of fun… and I have a box of polymers around here somewhere…

(By Mary Walsh of Merely Knew)

And these images in my head for inspiration…

 

(by Susan Goldstick)

So now the old knobs are soaking in a jar to get all the old gunk off. Wouldn’t it be fun to have colorful fun quirky knobs to brighten up otherwise boring kitchen cabinets? I've worked in polymers, it's fun and easy to work with.

Maybe in my house where everything is potential gallery space. We'll see... if I manage to do something like this then I'll post photos.
Happy Creating
Love,
Carmen Rose

What's the one thing

These all have in common?
Olive base cabinets, cream uppers
charcoal and cream
again
rich chocolate and white
and again
gray or stainless, not sure which and white uppers
the island contrast look
and again (LOVE this kitchen - so CLEAN looking!)
island contrast again
oh yeah, another one.

I will paint my kitchen cabinets. And when I do... the uppers will be a different color from the base cabinets. Now if I can just match paint to the hair colors that my border collies shed... (KIDDING!) I will need to purchase the new floor first, no point in needing to repaint if I can't get the color right.