2023 November
     The kitchen cupboards needed doors. Bunnings discontinued the colour we wanted which was Licorice Twist. For one 450mm door it would have cost $184. For a blank door that we could paint ourselves, it was $40. We decided that we would paint it ourselves! Luckily I love painting. So we special ordered the doors we needed, waited 6 weeks for the factory to make them, and then brought them home. Here they are laid out ready for their first coat. We needed one small door, two big doors and 3 drawer fronts.

     We decided on the colour Black Sea, as it would go with the black aluminium window frames, and contrast nicely with the Twill walls. But first there needed to be the first layer of primer coat. To protect the inside of the cupboard door from paint smears I carefully put blue masking tape around all the edges.

     Then you gotta wait for the paint to dry for a couple of hours before the next coat. Timing is tricky too because you don't want to paint when it is over 30 degrees, as the paint dries too fast to make a nice smooth coat. So in summer painting could only be done in the morning when it was still cool.

     This is what the colour looked like in the tin after stirring it for 5 minutes.

     The first coat of black - it was very hard to photograph because it was so dark but also shiny at the wrong angle.

     I think I ended up doing 3 coats of black, using a roller which gave a textured finish. I used the same roller as for the walls, and we liked how they turned out. This finish was great as opposed to a flat shiny finish which would show up fingermarks easily.

     When the doors were ready to be installed, it was time to screw the hinges on. We bought the Bunnings Kaboodle Hettiche hinges which cost a lot more but after reading the reviews on the Bunnings website (which can be very helpful and also often hilariously entertaining) these seemed to be the best option in the long run. First one part of the hinge attaches to the cupboard.

     Then the other side of the hinge attaches to the door.

Then it's easy to click them together to hang the door. These were quite simple to install, though the instructions were actually very lacking in useful information.

     And below you can see the doors attached to the big cupboard. You might be thinking - but where are the door handles? We decided to get push-to-open doors and drawers, which are a little more expensive but then you save money by not needing to buy handles. Also I am very clumsy and I liked the idea of not having things to bump into as I was moving around the kitchen. I discovered that I love the feeling of the push-to-open doors, perhaps because it's so fun to be counter-intuitive by pushing the wrong way to open them. I actually hate soft-close doors so I strongly objected to having them in the kitchen.

     Before the drawer fronts could be attached, we had to install the drawer runners. These were very expensive, at over $60 for each set, and we needed 3 sets to finish off this cupboard. First you attach one side to the cupboard.

     Then you attach the other side to the drawer, and click it into place.

     Here's the three drawers installed ready for the fronts to be attached.

     But before we could attach the drawer fronts, the cupboards had to be set up in their final exact places so that we could drill the holes for the gas plumbing to get to the stove, and then put the bench top over the cupboards. Next update - benchtops!