Hardware Swap

Sometimes I get this wild hair to do something and I have to do it rightthisminute.  Those wild hairs have really been rare since having kids but last week told a different story.  After seeing John and Sherry’s amazing kitchen renovation, we needed new hardware on our kitchen cabinets….okay, wanted…wanted knew hardware.  I loved how they placed knobs on their upper cabinets and coordinating handles on their lower and our kitchen was begging for it.

So, last week I plucked that wild hair and replaced all of our hardware with new, more modern handles on the bottom cabinets and coordinating knobs on the top.

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Our old pulls weren’t bad and truth be told, they were actually pretty nice as seen in these old pictures:
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But, they were definitely a little more traditional than the new bar pulls I bought and I thought adding modern pulls would make our refurbished kitchen look a little more modern; not like the old kitchen it is that we set new appliances in and painted cabinets to make it look new.

Old on the left; new on the right:
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Replacing the lower cabinet hardware was easy peasy.  All I had to do was remove the old and install the new in the same holes.  The uppers were a different story.  I had to remove the old pulls, fill in the holes they left behind, drill new knob holes, and then screw in the new knobs.  On top of all that though, I figured it was high time I touched up the paint on our cabinets.  After almost five years, there were a few places where the paint was chipped just from normal, everyday use.  It was a simple fix though.  I just washed down all of the cabinets (something that also needed to be done) and used a small artists’ paint brush and leftover paint to paint right over those small chips. 

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Once everything was painted, I got to work filling and drilling for the knobs.  To fill the holes in, I used Bondo (purchased on Amazon because it was cheaper there than at Lowe’s) after seeing Chelsea use it to repair her dining chairs.  The stuff is great and perfect if you’re like me and want immediate results.  It dries super quick!  I filled the holes, sanded them down, and had them covered in paint in under a half hour.  The one thing I didn’t do though was pay attention to detail.  I replaced all of the hardware in sections over four days time and everytime I had a chance to get to work, it was a small chunk of time while the kids were playing or Gianna was taking a cat nap.  So, I rushed and I shouldn’t have because there are places where I didn’t spend enough time sanding the Bondo so that it was completely flush with the door and other places where I should’ve went back and added more, like on this door:
IMG_8436Can you see those two small indentations right where the old pulls were installed?  *sigh*  Lesson learned:  Don’t rush through a project.  I’ll probably go back over and sand or re-fill the next time our cabinets need a touch-up and thanfully, the imperfections aren’t all that noticeable but the fact remains, they are there and I shouldn’t have rushed.  My OCD self will suffer everytime she sees them…

Anyway, lets get to the best part of this little project.  It will end up costing me a few bucks or even be FREE!  How?  Well, because we’re going to sell the old hardware for what we paid for the new – just under $25 for 23 pieces.  The old hardware is still sold at our local Lowe’s for $3 a pop and we bought the new at a fantastic price from the same place I bought the hardware for the kids’ play kitcheneBay!  The knobs cost us 99 cents a piece and the pulls were $1.39 a piece – a fraction of what you’ll find them at in your local hardware store.  And, we can attest to their quality.  They’re heavy, brushed metal pieces of hardware that I’m sure will last just as long as the ones in-store. 
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If you have a hankering to replace hardware (or if you didn’t before, maybe you do now!), we highly recommend these! 

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Maybe it’s just me enjoying the change, but it kind of amazing how much of a difference hardware can make in a space.  We have original-to-the-house, ugly pulls on our master bath cabinets and I can’t wait to swap those out for these too.  Of course there’s a whole laundry list of updates we want to do in there eventually so you’ll have to stay tuned for those.  ;)

On another note relating to bathroom hardware, do you think it should match what’s in your kitchen?  I’ve seen lots of HGTV remodels where they install the same throughout the house.  Or is it better that it just coordinates?  Or maybe it doesn’t really matter at all and they can all be different and as long as they go with the rest of the decor in that particular room.  What say you fine readers?  I’m kind of asking because we were thinking of grabbing matching pulls for our bathroom, but in brass since a lot of the fixtures might be heading down the brass route.  Should we stick with the same or go different?  Of course this will all be happening months from now but it’s never too early to get a head start with plans, right?  :)

TGIF!

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P.S.  I’m sorry this isn’t more of a tutorial!  We’ve been slowly tackling a lot of boring things around here like hemming Anthony’s pants, fixing broken toys and books, and doing an entire house purge so I didn’t have a lot of time to document this whole process while it was happening.  Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be sure to answer them!

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Painted Sneaks

Whew!  What a week, huh guys?  I’ve been staying away from social media and focusing all my nervous energy on doing things like swapping out our kitchen cabinet pulls with knobs, a very spontaneous decision, and letting the girls paint their new kicks. 

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They both started complaining last week, while wearing their old sneakers, that their feet hurt.  Maybe it was because, when I checked out the situation, their toes were stuffed into their now-too-small sneaks and needed a tad more space.  (Seriously?  Didn’t I just buy those yesterday?!)  So, to Walmart we went where we grabbed the same sneakers as the ones they had that had lasted us several months.  You can’t beat the price at $5.67 each and really, they hold up so well!  I really loved these tennies too but they didn’t have them in the girls size at the store and I didn’t feel like waiting for them to be shipped so we went another route – plain white with a project in mind.

I had to push my fear of messes aside to set out all of my (very permanent) paints so that the girls could get their customization on.

First, I removed all of the shoelaces.
IMG_1710(And speaking of the shoelaces, the girls don’t know how to tie their laces yet so I’m thinking about grabbing some of these laces!  They look so cool and would make getting out the door without having to bend over (twice) so much easier!)

Then I stuffed the insides of the shoes with plastic bags so that paint didn’t get inside and also because they kept the sides from collapsing in while the girls painted.
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I wrote in this instagram that I let the girls “go to town” on their new shoes and maybe that was a little misleading because I didn’t just hand over the paint and walk away.  I did a little bit of what’s called micro-managing.  :)  Gianna and Sebastian were both sawing logs so I had two free hands to help, clean-up, whatever.  Part of that micro-mamaging was only letting them do one color at a time.  They wanted “rainbow” shoes and we’re still working on the concept of color-combining.  They have a hard time understanding how you get brown when you mix ALL the colors instead of rainbow… 

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I asked them to try not to get paint on the rubber soles.  I knew that the paint would end up peeling off of the rubber and so I just figured we could skip that part.  They did pretty good staying off the rubber and the little bits that they did paint, I could scratch right off.

I also told them that they could paint them however they wanted – stripes, polka dots, zebra, whatever.  And I told them that they could paint them differently than their sister was.  Haha!  They tend to start coloring differently and then, once they see how their sister is handling the crayon, they do the same.  I wanted their shoes to be totally different 1) because I was interested to see what each’s idea of painted shoes looked like and 2) so I could tell whose was whose without asking (even though I did mark their initials on the bottom soles just to be safe…not that they can’t share shoes but more so they won’t forget which they painted and fight over them Surprised smile).

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I thought about grabbing some NeverWet to spray them with so they’d stay cleaner longer but I haven’t had a chance to grab some.  By the time I do, their little feet will probably be begging for the next size up and since this paint-fest went so well, we might have to repeat it later.

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Next time, maybe I’ll grab a pair of my own and join in!  Anybody else?  :)

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painted toddler sneakers