Since we are now a military family, the term DIY has now officially been replaced with DITY. I like to sing it and picture P-Diddy while saying it, but that’s only because I’m insane and alone in my house most of the time. Today I started my redo of our Ikea Forhoja kitchen cart. (Bear in mind there are about 12 dots over those O’s and I don’t know why Ikea has to be so difficult with their furniture names!)
This is the stock photo for you to see what I am working with:
I have no idea what material they choose to seal their furniture, but I’m fairly certain it was made in the depths of hell. I sanded with my Black & Decker Mouse (God’s gift to DITY women across the world) for 2 hours and feel like I still have so much work to do. I now know this: when in doubt, always go with the lower sandpaper grit. It takes off more with less work. Otherwise you’ll end up like me and have to go over this stupid thing 5 times before it’s actually ready to stain.
My plan is to stain the bottom and drawers black and leave the top as a butcher block. But I’m honestly not sure after doing some investigating on the interweb. I mean, would you rather have hot teal or boring black?
via goodwivesmakedinner.blogspot.com
I have some serious thinking to do this week. The black makes more sense but the turquoise screams “I AM USEFUL!!” I may just play with a fun color on the cart and stain the table black. Perhaps a bright blue would be in order. The kitchen has a lot of green so the blue would be a nice change. I got some tung oil to lather up the surface and I hope it leaves it shiny and a little more resistant to random shit we spill on it. I’ll probably finish this next weekend and in the meantime, my dining room table is non-existent as it is covered with Random Kitchen Cart’s crap. The joys of home improvement projects…
togetherwearehome 