Update on Cabinets

Remember way back when I posted on refinishing my kitchen cabinets?! yes about a month ago now. Well.... I am sad to say I am still working on them. Gasp!! I know it is taking forever. I attribute it to needing to wait for things to dry and a baby boy that always wants his mommy. I am hoping to have everything done by thanksgiving, then I will have a kitchen to be thankful for. :)

Here is our bathroom that I did before the kitchen... It went a lot faster.

So I figured I could at least give an update for now and some tips for those of you that are trying out the same thing.

Tips:
1. Use a liquid sandpaper (Citristrip gel) on the drawers and doors. I found that it was a lot better at striping the wood than just sanding. I really want to get a good even smooth stain on the most noticeable parts of my cabinets. I did not use it on the frame as I didn't want to deal with the mess. Just did it on the large sides that were built in and sanded the rest.
2. Use the mineral wash recommend to get all the leftovers off the wood before and after sanding. It helped just to make sure the all the citristrip was off before the stain. It was also very helpful to get stain and topcoat off my hands.
3. Use larger tape then 1". I use 1" painters tape to tape off areas and I still got paint on the walls. It was hard to get my tools in the small areas.
4. Use a smooth sponge. Now there are others that say to use a sock but I found that a smooth sponge worked so much better to get a smooth coat on the wood. The sock wood leave marks where the toe stitch was and was hard to get an even coat.
5. Remove all hardware (cabinet hinge's) and appliances. I asked mt husband to do this for me and he said it would be fine and I may have gotten stain on stuff ...oppps I know you may not care about stain on your hinges but I kinda wish I had taken the time to do it cause it isn't very clean of a look.