Life's too short for fake mistletoe

Oh by gosh by golly, it's time for mistletoe and holly. And if you live anywhere in the green area of this map, you're in luck because you can go out and find the real stuff.

Mistletoe is actually a group of parasitic plants and what's usually seen around Christmas in the US is Phoradendron serotinum. There are a number of other mistletoes that grow in the US and indeed the world, but Phoradendron is the prize winner.

Florida's lousy with the stuff, all you have to do is look up into an oak tree and chances are good you'll see it. It's just a matter of identifying it. Every Christmas, I go out and collect fresh mistletoe and hang it over the doorway in my living room. Most people are amazed when they see it and find out what it is. I suppose that's due to the omnipresence of the plastic stuff.

Here's the clump of mistletoe that will sacrifice itself for the benefit of my Christmas this year:

Here's a close-up of the leaves:

Mistletoe dies and withers within hours of my cutting it and I've never been able to figure out why or to prevent it from happening. Oh well. I usually wait until a day or so before Christmas to go collecting for that reason. I've been collecting and hanging fresh mistletoe for so many years that it just wouldn't be Christmas without it.

If you find some for yourself, be careful with it. It's seriously poisonous, so don't use it near food. But poison aside, nothing says Christmas to me quite like it.

Blomsterverkstad is an inspiration

Blomsterverkstad... I love saying that word. Blomsterverkstad is a blog written by Minna Merke, a stylist and photographer in Sweden. Her blog is beautiful and she makes some really inspired things with flowers and vegetables. The image below is what happens when her creative mind runs into the world's most fantastic vegetable.

I think this is the coolest wreath I've ever seen. Minna has step-by-step instructions on her blog to show you how to make one of these for yourself. I think my Christmas Eve dinner just got a new motif.

Cheap Fixes: Get painting!

OK, so yesterday we went through the prep work needed before you start painting kitchen cabinetry. Every surface you just prepped needs to be primed now. You cannot skip this step or you will end up with a top coat that will peel off within weeks of your completing all of this work. That's bad.

I recommend that people use an oil-based epoxy primer called Kilz. Kilz was developed as a paint for bathtubs originally, and there is little it won't stick to. Be sure to use the original, solvent-based formula. There is a water-based companion product out there called Kilz 2, but I don't trust it. The water-based stuff is great for hiding stains on walls, but you need something with the staying power of the original.

I prefer that the primer be applied with a 4" roller with a 1/4" nap. Do not skimp on the rollers, you want a lint-free roller and for me, they are made exclusively by the Purdy corporation. Buy good tools! I cannot repeat that often enough. You will find Purdy painting supplies at Sherwin-Williams and at Home Depot.

I'm telling you to use a short roller because I don't like to see brush marks on cabinetry. The four-inch size will allow you greater flexibility when you're priming and later, painting. Use the primer sparingly, it's better to go to light than to go too heavy. So prime everything and let it dry. This will take a while. Pay attention as you're using that Kilz too. It will stick fast to everything it touches, including skin and it's a bitch to remove.

When the primer's dry, inspect everything to be sure that everything you've primed has been covered with an even coat. Sand down any gloppy areas and remove the dust with a tack cloth.

You want to paint your doors and cabinets with a high-quality, exterior paint. Exterior paint is more resilient than wall paint. Avoid using anything shinier than an eggshell finish. The shinier a paint finish, the more flaws it will show. You cannot replicate the look of sleek and shiny European cabinetry, so don't try. The closer to matte sheen paint you use, the better your finished product will look.

Apply your paint in even strokes with a short, 1/4" nap roller. Go light on the paint. Paint everything and let it dry. Once it's dry, go back and sand down any raised areas. remove the dust with a tack cloth.

Paint everything with a second coat. Take your time. Once the second coat is dry, look over everything again and make sure that you have smooth, even coverage. Depending on what you painted over, you may need to apply a third coat of paint. 

Oh, please resist the temptation  to get cute with your finish. Faux finishes have no business on kitchen cabinetry and now is not the time to try out something you saw in a magazine. Paint a canvas and hang it in your kitchen if you can't help yourself. Cheap fixes are supposed to retreat into the background. Something like this will stick out like a sore thumb and end up scaring away your guests. Don't do it!

Once everything is painted and dry (this will take a good day or so), you can begin reassembling your kitchen. Go slowly, take your time putting everything back together. Once the doors and drawers are back in place, attach all of the knobs and pulls.

Taaa daaaa! You're done. You may now curse the day you thought it would be a good idea to paint these cabinets.

Cheap Fixes: Get ready to paint.

My cheap fixes so far have been the scrub and purge and the replace the hardware. When they don't work, maybe it's time to paint the things already. I've been dragging my feet over this because I think of cabinet painting as a nuclear option. You cannot turn back once you start this. It sounds like such a simple thing but don't be fooled. Painting existing cabinetry properly is neither simple nor is it painless. It's hard to get a good result and that's due to a whole host of reasons. For starters, the paint job can only look as good as the condition of what you're painting. Old, falling-apart cabinetry will end up looking like old, freshly-painted, falling apart cabinetry. Also, this is not something you can rush through or take a bunch of shortcuts with. Painting kitchen cabinetry is time consuming but there's a time and a place for it.

Everybody has a different way of doing this and this is my way. I've done this before (though I'm not proud of it) and I've achieved a good result. I see enough bad results out there to know that sound instructions on this gentle art are sorely needed. Here goes.

Empty all of your kitchen cabinets and store everything in an out of the way place. You won't be moving anything back for a while so get used to the inconvenience. Once they're empty, you have to remove all of the doors and drawer heads in order to paint. You have to. If you're unwilling to take this important step then turn back now. When you remove the doors and drawer heads, mark the backs of them so you know which cabinet the door or drawer front came from. You will end up with a pile of loose doors in the course of this project and you will be lost if you don't let yourself know what goes where when it's time to put everything back together.

If your cabinetry has exposed hinges, the hinges will need to be removed as well. If the hinges are hidden, then you can leave them in place. Remove all of the knobs and pulls from the doors as well.

Once all of the doors have been removed, sit them on a canvas or other fabric drop cloth. Whatever drop you use, it has to be absorbent. Don't use a plastic sheet or tarp. You want drips to be absorbed quickly by the drop cloth.

You're going to need to clean all of the doors and drawer heads first. You're also going to have to clean the frames and insides of the cabinetry that's still in place. The best cleaner you can find for this is trisodium phosphate, or TSP. TSP is sold at paint stores in its powdered form and when mixed with water, it becomes a powerful, alkaline cleaner and degreaser. It's pretty caustic stuff, so wear gloves and eye protection when you're using it. Now before you get too upset about using trisodium phosphate, know that it's also a food additive and a common fertilizer; so it's not as if you're using plutonium for this project. Trisodium phosphate reacts strongly to metal so you're going to want to keep it away from the hinges of your doors. As a side note too, do not dump trisodium phosphate solutions down a drain when you're done with them. TSP, as a fertilizer, causes algae blooms when it ends up in surface water. Rather than flushing it, just dump it on your lawn. The grass will use it up and prevent it from going anywhere. Please correct me if I'm wrong about that disposal suggestion.

Follow the instructions on the label and mix up a batch of TSP and water. Wipe down all of the surfaces of the doors with it and then wipe down the cabinet boxes that are still attached to the walls in your kitchen. TSP is the ultimate degreaser and it will remove years of built up kitchen gunk without a whole lot of trouble. Once clean, then let them dry.

Now that they're dry, you need to prepare the surfaces to be primed and painted. You need not remove all of the existing finish, all you're trying to do is rough up the surface enough so that a primer can adhere to it. This is best accomplished with a random orbital sander and 150 grit sandpaper. You can do it by hand, but the sander will make much faster work of it. Rough up the doors and then go into the kitchen and rough up any surfaces you're going to paint in there too. Usually, that's just the frames on framed cabinetry. Sometimes though, you'll want to paint the cabinet interiors as well. If that's the case, get sanding.

Once you're done sanding everything, wipe everything down with a tack cloth to remove the dust. You can find tack cloths at the same paint store where you bought the TSP.

OK, so now your surfaces are clean and ready to be primed. Now what? Now you're going to prime everything obviously, and I'll go over that in my next installment of Cheap Fixes. Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion of this post.

Ouch! I forgot to re-post a post

In mid-October I wrote a series of posts dedicated to the geology of the types of natural stone that end up being made into kitchen counters. I must have pulled down one of them to re-edit it at some point, because I just learned that my post from 14 October has been missing from my archives all this time. The post was all about marble and other metamorphic rocks and I think it has a lot of good information in it. I reposted it just now and all is well with my archives again. Here's the link if you want to go to it directly.