Hannah Bright reporting

Our kitchen cabinet project is in full swing, just like the music of the day when our 1940s Youngstown steel metal cabinets were built.

Tyler and I purchased them from a couple in Stillwater. The cabinets had come out of some old apartments located above a post office in downtown Stillwater. We scored 3 sinks, 6 base cabinets, and numerous large and small upper cabinets. Tyler’s mom, Sheilah, utilized one of the sinks in their party barn, and the other two will be installed into our home. One will be placed in the mudroom, as well as some upper cabinets for laundry room storage, and the other sink and some of the additional lower and upper cabinets will be installed in our kitchen. We plan on mixing our old metal cabinets with new stained wooden cabinets to complete our dream kitchen. Check out our Youngstown steel cabinets in their prime in this old magazine add: (Click to enlarge)

Reality check:  Our kitchen cabinets currently look like this:

In order to refurbish the cabinets, they must first be sandblasted, which I am currently working on. Next,  they will be primed and painted (which we plan on doing ourselves), and the cabinet hardware will be re-chromed. There are original stickers on the inside of the cabinet doors, but they are going to be hard to salvage during the sand-blasting process. Instead, Tyler is going to recreate them and have them printed. Here are pictures of the first cabinet I sandblasted, before I realized I needed different work clothes and a better work space:

Here is what I have learned about the Brights: They like to do things right, which sometimes means building or buying stuff to get the job done Bright. I’m happy to call this 20ft container my new sandblasting space, it allows me to collect and reuse the sandblasting media. After we are finished sandblasting, this will become our painting space as well.

Tyler and his dad Kent, added lights and a exhaust fan to our sandblasting/painting container, making the process a little less horrible. Plus, it not only helps keep me warm on cold winter nights, it also gives me a nice golden tan.

Our kitchen cabinet project will be a long process, with many more steps ahead. So keep watching and I will update as we go.