Well, I did something yesterday that could be considered uh... "eccentric". I mean, what's wrong with postponing breakfast for an hour and a half to take pics of my 2nd instar BST cats??? It seems some people think that to be strange... Oh, well. Maybe through our good examples these [odd] people can be brought to see the light... p.s: I am quickly deciding that the phrase "like herding cats" should (and does) describe multiple situations. It's amazing how hard it is to get 5 BST cats on the first inch of a finger to photograph. After yesterday's experience, I decided to compose a song to the tune of "We Three Kings". It goes something like: We 5 caterpillars of doom/ We'll annoy you greatly/ When you try to take our picture we can move very fast/ chorus:/O-oh, we will move far away/ From where you want us to be/ We'll come and annoy you greatly/ We 5 cats of doom! -Jmcat

I painted the my cabinets in my interim kitchen. Insides, Formica outsides, shelf surfaces, everything with 2 coats of good quality latex paint and a small foam roller. They held up perfectly for the 41/2 years or so until they were demo'ed, and there was no reason to think they would not have continued to perform well beyond that. They took scrubbing etc., which your cabinet insides will probably not need. Just go for it! I only thought I'd need them for about a year, and had low expectations. I didn't prime, and, in fact forgot to wash them first! I took the doors off of some, so painting over the heavily patterned plasticky looking fake wood grain was essential. And I dragged heavy bowls and plates daily across the paint on those horizontal surfaces, and it was fine and I had only barely visible surface scratching there. The shelf surfaces is the most likely place for the paint to fail, so if you want to skip that, or paint it and put down shelf liners or something, that's an option. But the inside of the box? It barely gets touched, and the paint should adhere fine. As with all painting, don't slather the paint on, or you get problems with drips and "waterfalls". Go for another coat if you need more coverage. Latex dries really fast. I didn't even remove the doors (except the ones I took off to have open shelves) -- I just painted everything in situ. But these doors were never going to accept perfection. Good luck!

Wow, buehl, that was a lot of work for you to do--thank you so much! Taking off w/ ttosh's comment, does anyone know if GardenWeb is *planning* to change to a different forum/whatever (how's that for techie talk?! LOL)? As frustrating as it is for us posters/readers, sure seems to be just as frustrating to them, as well as a ton of work for them to have to keep doing...and redoing...and redoing... And then what? Does it finally just crash and burn for good? Don't even wanna go there!

Yes, I painted my interiors white six years ago and they are still beautiful. I refinished the outsides still on the walls (that was the hardest part), removed the shelving and painted the insides with white semi-gloss latex, then painted the shelves and covered them in white contact paper. We had to have new doors made because I sanded through the veneer. Oops! I had to talk myself into painting the interior, but I'm very glad I did. Maintenance is a breeze, and they always look clean. Plus, it was surprisingly easy to do, once I got started. Some awkward angles, but no edging to worry about. You'll be glad you did it, especially since your exteriors will be painted. I salute you for building your own! Sherry