quote:

Originally posted by joecaption:
It would have been far safer to use an Orange cleaner, Cuts the grease, no smell and safe on your body.

I use orange cleaner on many things, and we always have some in the farm shop...but you cannot imagine the mess in that tractor cab...tractor cabs are not big spaces, but it took an hour to clean...and, I was wearing special vinyl gloves that are made to handle chemicals...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by swschrad:
we decided to get a router and table (Merry Christmas for me!), a rail/stile bit set, and some oak and made all our own cabinet doors and drawer fronts... and later a $30 Chinese jiig to dovetail our own replacement drawers with better slide systems.

That sounds like a great idea...38 doors...WOW!! Being farmers we have tons of tools...but no miter and a broken router...I have been thinking of getting a miter...because I was thinking of adding some sort of extra trim to the doors...if I was oh, say, 30 yrs old, I'd try making my own doors and bet I could do it...but at 65, think I'll keep it as easy as I can!!
Hey, would love to se pics of those DIY doors...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jmd47,

I've had the hydrolic hose on a well drilling truck blow with the engine compartment open, 50 gal. of oil all over the whole truck and also all over the home owners new deck and cedar siding.

I got hired at New Hampshire Ball Bears as a petrolium transfure engineer, sounded good so I took the job.
Turns out the job was to change the oil and filters on machine and pressure steam the machines.
So ya I may know what you went though.

Jmd47:

It's as simple as this:

What's on your cabinets is cooking oil and animal fat from your stove. Every time you fry an egg in corn oil or fry some bacon, some of the oil or fat gets into the air and ends up on your kitchen walls, ceiling and cabinet doors. Any dish washing detergent will remove it. In fact just about any detergent will work fine.

Whenever I paint a kitchen ceiling I clean it with Simple Green or Mr. Clean first and then rinse with clean water because of the possibility of an oil film preventing proper adhesion of the new paint to the old.

I clean cabinet doors with mineral spirits and WHITE paper towels, and that's only because it allows me to judge how dirty the doors are by how much cooking oil and other dirt (like cigarette smoke) comes off the doors onto the paper towel. Once I can wipe the door with a paper towel damp with mineral spirits, and it stays white, I know the door is clean.

joecaption....indeed...sounds like you know about hydraulic oil...heehee!!

Nestor... yep, I sure know all that about the kitchen getting dirty & grimey...I'm not concerned about cleaning them, my only concern is getting the cabinets to look great and to finally decide exactly what I want to do with them...

Thanks!

Joining this discussion late...

My house had wallpapered kitchen walls when I bought it. The wallpaper over the years has "weathered" well but it does seem to absorbe some stains, probably from cooking activities. Someday I'll remove it and will never use wallpaper again, not so much because of any problems but just because removing matieral that's been applied with adhesive is a time consuming muscle stressing activity.

I support the recommendations not to use it on cabinets. If you ever want to remove it, it will be time consuming and a mess.

As to making nice doors and/or cabinets, I saw a wonderful dovetail jig at a woodworking show a few years ago. It made not only the standard dovetails but artistic ones in the shape of hearts and other designs. I still lust for it but it was way beyond my budget.

So, Swschrad, I envy you with your own dovetail jig!

Yes, my idea of using that wall paper in the door panels has bit the dust...if I can get a miter, I might put an extra trim around the door edges up against the trim that's already there...but, regardless of that, I'm gonna paint the cabinet 'frames' and the door trim the same color as I'll use for the bottom portion of the kitchen walls (use a chair rail to seperate top & bottom walls, the top is white and will remain so)...I'll use some sort of tinted sealer or stain on the door panels to get a little brown tone to them (they're oak) and nice hardware and call it good.

Oh, I might change it up a little and brown tone the cabinet frames & trim with a stain and paint the door panels that wall color...

Hey...try ebay for that jig you'd like to have...ya never know

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jmd47,

Just a couple of ideas you can take and run with or not.......

http://www.familyhandyman.com/...abinets/Step-By-Step

http://www.familyhandyman.com/...cabinet-door-inserts

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ron45,

Another one, or you could just visit the sight...

http://www.familyhandyman.com/...o-glass/Step-By-Step

Thank you...these are some very good ideas...and I sure appreciate the links.
To keep this simple for me, I'm going to paint part of the cabinets and re stain the rest a brownish tint to deepen the oak color of the wood.
I decided to paint the cabinet frames & door trim and re stain the door panels, and add some nice hardware...
This will give the kitchen a new look, I'm also going to put bead board (wainscoting)and chair rail on the bottom portion of the walls and paint it all the same color as I paint the cabinets door panel...keeping the top portion white.

Thanks so much!!