The Rustic Look

If we were looking for the rustic look on our cabinets we hit the jackpot three days into our cabinet repaint. If you would like to achieve this look for your cabinets follow these steps.
1. Get a crazy idea to repaint all of your cabinets.
2. Read all you can on the internet on how to go about your crazy idea. I'll save you this step- Clean with TSP, lightly sand, prime then paint.
3. Wait for the paint store to have a great sale and buy the paint. We used ProClassic paint on our cabinets (which ended up great after the rustic fiasco) and will use it on our trim work as well.
4. Since the paint store is having a great sale, it will be swamped with people like us with many crazy ideas. Don't wait for the associates that usually help you because it will take forever. Go straight to the guy that looks new, or maybe just hired for the day. Take his advice that the ProClassic doesn't need a primer, even though this sounds 100 degrees of wrong.
5. Clean your cabinets, sand ALL of them lightly and start painting. After two coats of paint you will realize that the stain is dissolving your paint in the exact places you've sanded just the day before. This won't work.
6. Head back to your local paint store with one of your cabinet doors for some advice. The associates that usually help you will be available and apologize profusely for the new guy's bad advice and point you to a primer that you must use.
7. Go back home with renewed motivation and prime all the cabinets and boards with 2 coats. Realize again around 8pm that the yellow stain is coming through all layers of paint and primer.
8. Local paint store is closed so take your cabinet door to the blue hardware store. Buy the correct primer (Zinnser B-I-N) and start again in the morning.
9. After all the layers of incorrect paint and primer your doors will be very sticky. You must spend the entire day sanding in order to start painting on the correct primer. This will take quite some time because even with 60 grit sandpaper and a rotary sander only the edges will sand smooth. You will now have the perfect rustic cabinet doors...if that is what you were looking for.

We eventually got everything sanded and re-primed after a couple of days. We finished painting last night and J stayed up to hang all the doors and install the mircrowave. We are installing the hardware today and then starting on the countertops. Here are a couple of pictures.