So to start at the beginning - hustlep2........how is it that the wood grain can still be seen through paint? I have the same lovely honey coloured cabinets and I need to refinish as opposed to replace. They are solid oak and in beautiful shape, but need to be brought into this decade. The counter top was updated about 2 years ago and I can work with it, deciding what and how to refinish the cupboards is not so easy. My husband is horrified at the thought of painting wood.....I know, it's old school thought I suppose, but I can appreciate his feeling too. I'm leaning to a two-tone design, maybe paint and stain.....not sure. We just bought the house 4 months ago (was built in 89) and have replaced all carpetting with solid provincial coloured oak flooring (not dark, not light....the colour is in between both) and porcelain tiles that look like slabs of marble with burned orange, deep browns, cream and grays running through it on a rich beige background. I am using colours and materials that lend a tuscan flavour.......tuscan sun on the walls in the living room with an accent wall in peacock feather, furniture is cappacino coloured. Very warm and inviting. There's just the crown molding left to do and that'll be in white as is the all the trim in the room. I want the kitchen and dining rooms to be bright, but still nod to the tuscan flavour in the rest of the house. The kitchen opens to a sun room overlooking a pool, deck and the river in our back yard (facing south / east). On the other side of the kitchen (L shaped with the kitchen in the inside corner of the L) is the dining room with huge windows overlooking the back as well. There is lots of natural light. I LOVE the tuscan sun colour (kind of a deep clay pot colour really), it's so warm and inviting. Any thoughts or words of advice to offer for the kitchen? 2 days ago · Like olldroo If you want a Tuscan look, then do not paint your cupboards. Fads come and fads go but if you look back over the years you will see timber is timeless, it is always around. Timber can always be polished or oiled to rejuvenate it but paint needs regular maintenance. 44 hours ago · 1 lauramaepatrie Olidroo, thank you for your comment. I agree with you completely about the paint or not to paint thing. I'm just cringing at the amount of work it is going to take to bring back a number of the cupboard doors. The cupboards as I said are in beautiful shape.....nothing is broken, no doors or drawer fronts are broken, cracked or chipped or even hanging askew, HOWEVER a few chosen door fronts (the ones in key places that are used 1,000 X a day as opposed to maybe 1 X per week like the others) have worn finishes. The wear is so bad on some that the finish is long gone and some of the surface wood grain has darkened. I have 26 door fronts (2 of which are very large pantry doors) and 7 drawer fronts in total, so I am really trying to figure out what we can do WITHOUT having to completely sand the old finish on all of these cupboard fronts. I should add that we are beyond middle aged (unless we are going to live to a VERY old age lol) and he have remodeled and redecorated many houses over the years usually just getting them completely finished in order to sell them. We have done well, but this is a much more up scale type of home than what we are used to working on so it's more of a challenge to make sure we are going to appeal to that range of buyer looking for a home in this price range. This house has 4,000 s.f. of living space and, as mentioned, in water-front, dbl car att'd garage, central air, etc. etc. Our investment dollars are limited, but that is something we ARE accustomed to in the sense of using imagination, elbow grease, our own work and a reasonable amount of talent to make the best of a home rather than just dishing out $$$ to someone else to do so. I am taking your comment to heart and even before reading it this morning, I woke up with an idea that I have been discussing with my husband even more positively since reading your comment. See, there's another link in all this......I mentioned oak hardwood and porcelain floors. We have done those in the rest of the house (hardwood in the living room and reading area off of the living room, down the hall to, and in, the 3 good-sized bedrooms and, of course, in their closets. The master has an extra wide "hall" that passes in front of an 8.5' X 8' walk in closet to the master bath. That whole section was done in cork flooring and will be the only flooring that won't be ceramic / porcelain or hardwood on this level. Now, back to the new twist for the kitchen. The original flooring in the kitchen and the back hall / entrance is ceramic and is rather neutral in tones, but our original plan was to use the new, gorgeous porcelain tiles we put in at the front entrance (and inlaid in the form of a large diamond in the hallway hardwood between the front entrance of the house and dining room) so that everything flowed throughout the house, it was either all the same hardwood or all the same porcelain. My husband is now flinching at the thought of removing the ceramics in the kitchen, back entrance. I understand as it is properly laid and will undoubtedly be a huge amount of work to remove. I'm just really unsatisfied with the thought of not having ALL the flooring flow. Do you happen to know if there is a way to remove the ceramics without damaging the prepped floor underneath? It's a type of plastic "bubble" looking stuff that you adhere to the sub-floor with a cement type mix. You then adhere your ceramic or porcelain tiles to it once it has dried. We used it under the porcelain we installed here and we can see that it was used under the ceramics in the kitchen. If there is a way of salvaging that when we remove the tiles, it would save a lot of $$$ and of course work in the end. 38 hours ago · Like olldroo lauramaepatrie - not always easy to visualise things but if your doors are solid timber then there should be ways of fixing them - or worst case scenario replacing just the damaged ones. I'm thinking if you sand the damaged ones back you should be able to remove the darker markings too. The surface wood markings is probably just basically ground in dirt. The other way I often have success is to use steel wool to scour the dirt and finish by rubbing Scandinavian Teak Oil into the timber also using steel wool. This oil seems to work well on most timbers but you can get other colours in oil if one might match your timber better. Can't help you with your tiles sorry, they do sound a big job. Perhaps you could talk to some local tilers and see what is involved. It sounds to me like the plastic would lift easier to remove the tiles rather than try to remove the tiles from the plastic. It all depends on how solid an adhesive it is. It all depends on patterns in the tiles, but if your entrance tiles are patterned and the kitchen fairly plain, then I think leaving things as they are would be fine - a stand alone entrance feature looks fine, in fact yours sounds very dramatic. Another alternative, if you did take up the kitchen tiles would be to replace them with the cork. I love cork for kitchens, it does take a bit of care, but it is so much softer underfoot and kinder to feet and joints (especially older ones). PS I'm on the wrong side of middle aged too so I completely understand things from the $$$ aspect. 30 hours ago · 1 lauramaepatrie olldroo, thank you once again for your input. You sound as though you know a good deal about wood for sure. Are / were you a cabinet m aker or carpenter of some kind? I'd like to hear more about these oils with colour in them.......the idea I woke up with this morning is exactly what you've suggested. Sand down the real rough ones, then using a stain / varnish or gel stain or whatever seems to work best to try to match the finish as best we can to make the cupboards work without anything jumping out at you (like the worn cupboard fronts do). I think changing up the hardware to something more modern (thinking brushed nickel, sleek door handles and drawer pulls, both the same) and some really sharp tiling for a back splash to draw the attention and add a wow factor. I thank you for your input and I'll wait to see if you can provide me with more info on this oil stuff. Is it hard to work with? What is the advantage as opposed to just stain and then varnish.......? 25 hours ago · Like olldroo lauramaepatrie - I'm just a senior with lots of experience, especially in the trial and error DIY department. I have picked up a bit about wood more from the Tasmanian Oak panelling, skirtings and architraves I have in my home. Can't help you much with oil brands because ours would be different to yours (I'm an Aussie), but I'm sure the guys at Home Depot or someplace similar would be able to guide you. I love hardware stores, I leave hubby at home and do what I call my "dumb broad act". I just ask every conceivable question, play the helpless little woman, even con free samples, until I get all the information I need. Works every time (don't tell anyone). I learned the trick about using the steel wool when we first put the Tassie Oak in, even though it is a very hard timber the steel wool still rubs it up enough for the oil to get in and it leaves a lovely patina on the timber. We used white shellac on it to bring the colour of the timber up and then oiled to preserve and maintain it, but I have also used oil on timber with other stains also with success. I have even put it over surfaces I'm sure are varnished and it still works. I re-oil it every 4 or 5 years and it still looks great after 35 years. It is very quick and easy to do, a little messy, but I would much rather oil 10 walls than paint 1. Put it this way, if your doors have had it anyway, you can't make them much worse, so you really have nothing to l

I am getting really ambitious...going out to pick some rhubarb so I can make a strawberry rhubarb pie. The new house has a strawberry bed and today's haul was enough to add to some rhubarb. The only problem is my hubby will probably make the filling as he doesn't like to add any sugar at all...I like tart, but I think it tastes best with a small amount of sugar to bring out the flavor. He really likes to cook and I don't, although I would do more baking but as soon as I get the ingredients out and the rhubarb cut up, he'll be there to take over. Note - I am not going too crazy...the toughest thing about this crust is unrolling it from the package!

I thought you all would have been in bed by now. Thanks kd - one day I will get into Photoshop ............... one day, on my bucket list. I'm glad I can say this now, but I can't believe you were looking at that Homesense rug - it is horrible, you definitely have far better taste than that. Have you looked into the cost of getting rugs cut down? Costs a bomb here. Angela, congrats on your Scholarship money, you deserve it with all the time you devote and your dedication. Bit worried now I may have confused you more with your tiles. You know your room and what you want to achieve so go with your heart. Robin - don't work too hard, stay safe. One day you and kd are going to fall over each other .......... literally.

This is really becoming very interesting Linda, maybe things are different here too. Take for example when I called people to quote on my bathroom renovation - the first two guys I called were loosely described as builders in that they had served apprenticeships and were qualified carpenters (or chippies as we call them). They would take on any structural work in a home, even do extensions and build completely new homes. They do all the basic structural work and then, in our case, call in licenced plumbers, electricians and qualified tilers. If new walls are necessary, as was the case in our ensuite, they will call in qualifed plasterers to do this work. The third guy and the one we used described himself as a bathroom renovator as he was a qualified tiler but he had years of experience to do basic building work as well and then called in other trades. He even used a specialist demolisher to gut the bathrooms as they had all the tools to do the work cleanly and quickly in one day. All the tradespeople have done courses and apprenticeships and are licenced and if you have any sense you don't use anyone without checking their licence first. For this reason, I would consider anyone, like Sir David and Kutchie and even yourself with your vast experience to be able to advise on structural issues that are pretty much black and white and things that have to be done for correct and safe building practices. On the other hand, designers or decorators, no matter what their qualifications are only giving an opinion on furniture style, colour schemes, furniture placement, etc, things that aren't black and white but are a personal preference thing. I note many of them come on strong with colour schemes having absolutely no idea of the climate or lighting or aspect in a room that can make a huge difference to the finished result and it really surprises me that as professionals, they always miss this. When dilemmas are on structural or building issues, I never comment simply because it is something the average person would know nothing about - the only time I have commented is when I have had a similar problem and I can state how it was handled and the result, successful or otherwise. Decorating, on the other hand is something anyone with an eye for detail can join in on and these are the dilemmas where I feel the Pro could be intimidating. It is bad enough when they come back with the "I'm a pro so I'm right" without having a "Read my Title" attitude as well. As far as I am concerned there are no REAL rights and wrongs in decorating anyway where building practices are another thing completely. I'm glad you got a Pro anyway, we certainly value you here.