At 3:00 pm on the nose I walked into my house after putting on the last coat of polyurethane on the last of the doors. For those who are unaware, I started this journey in 2010!!! I decided I wanted to restain our old school oak cabinets a darker color. So I started with our downstairs bathroom since it was the smallest. I used stripper, mineral spirits, and varathane poly and stain in one. I decided I needed a more professional look for the kitchen so used Varathane stain and then applied the polyurethane over the stain. So went from 3 coats of the combo to 3 of stain and 2 of poly.

Over the years, I've managed to complete 3 bathrooms, a bay of large linen cabinets, our stair rails and finally, our kitchen and bar. Keep in mind when I started my daughters were 3 and 4! Most of the breaks I took were due to school breaks and my biggest break was due to a slab leak last year that ate up a huge chunk of my kitchen budget to remedy. Kind of hard to find motivation when you know once the effort is done, you will still have to wait for countertops, etc.

Here is what is on my garage floor right now drying-the very last of the cabinets. I told my husband I was drinking tonight!!! I will, of course, put full before and after pics up tomorrow once they are dry and hung tomorrow.