The Death of a Dream

One of the things you should do if  you put a glaze on your cabinets (or as we did with the decorative pinstripe) and (as we also did), sand down to bare wood to show age, is to put a polyurethane clear coat (yeah, CLEAR coat, right) on it to seal the glaze and protect the wood.   Unfortunately, an oil based polyurethane has a yellow tint to it.  How yellow - I didn't realize even though Paul had done a test door for me (it didn't look that yellow to be honest).

Now to be fair, Paul and the guy at the paint store told me this up front.  And, we talked about a water based polyurethane, which doesn't have a yellow tint, but it does not hold up as well and we would have had to wait longer for the glaze to dry.  And to be truthful, that pinstripe glaze adds an elegance and an old look to the cabinets.  If we had just painted them white, it would not have shown as much detail and these doors have a lot of detail and character.  So we had to poly them (that is what Paul calls it).

So, I kept my fingers crossed.  And, hoped, and hoped, and hoped.

Well, my hopes were dashed.  Paul sprayed the polyurethane on the hood one Sunday and showed it to me.  I cried, I really, really cried.  And I was in a bad mood for the rest of the day. For the rest of the week (Paul says, although I tried to hide it).  Here's the hood in question without the glaze and with the glaze and polyurethane. The pictures don't really show it, but trust me, it is there.

Without Glaze

With Glaze

Without Glaze

With Glaze

Here's the kitchen showing the doors before the polyurethane was applied and the difference in color. 

To Paul's credit and because he has to live with me, he tried to make it right.  Our next door neighbor, as I have mentioned before, paints motorcycles. So Paul brought him over for a consultation.   His suggestion was to wet sand it with 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper. So Paul gave it a shot.  And it even added to the aged look.

Now, does it work in the whole scheme of things, making the cabinets look like they have been there a hundred years?  Yes.  And does it work in this kitchen?  Yes.  But, I feel compromised.  Cheated.  Almost violated.  OK, maybe violated is a little strong.  But I did feel cheated.

To top it off, when Paul sprayed the poly on the doors, he had to do it twice, TWICE, because it didn't match the cabinets and drawers that had been previously sprayed with the poly.

And you know what really ticks me off?  That I spent all that time looking for the "perfect white" when I could have just used the paint color that we paint the woodwork with.