Friday, September 3, 2010

Kitchen Facelift

Okay, this post is for all of you d.i.yers who have toyed with the idea of painting your kitchen/bathroom cabinets but have been too scared to.

A year and a half ago the fam and I moved to a new house. We have been slowly renovating her and welcoming her to the 2000's. (She was just a little outdated, grapevine wall paper, pink counters...gah.) Of all the renovations, the kitchen has probably been our biggest transformation.

The bones were there...good, solid oak cabinets, but a little "1980's" and definately a lot blah.

I knew that I wanted to paint the cabinets white. As much as I enjoy look of wood, the cabinets and floors combined were a little too much.


That's Avery...eating a bowl of cereal.

I started the process by taking the doors off in sections. I figured if I did a little at a time I wouldn't feel quite as overwhelmed. I bought all of my paint and primer at Sherwin Williams. I would totally recommend the products I used. It was a little expensive, but worth every penny. Besides I only ended up needing a can of each...primer and paint. (The primer I used was called Adhesion Primer. The stuff is freaktastic. It creates an awesome foundation for the paint to stick to. The paint I used was designed specifically for doors and trim. It's called ProClassic and it dries super hard so there's no need to apply a protective coating. BONUS!)
Here's what it looked like after my first section was done.



My kitchen cabinets were quite plentiful, so I ended up painting about four different sections over the course of two or three days. I would paint and then reattach my doors as I went along. (I actually rolled the paint on with a small door/trim roller. This technique helped the paint go on nice and smooth and even.)

Once I had all of the cabinets painted I reattached them, then added hardware. Adding hardware, in my opinion, can drastically change the look of your cabinets alone. But, if you decided to paint and change hardware you can make your kitchen look completely transformed.

And look, when you turn them upside down they make a smiley face...which is exactly how they make me feel every time I look at them.

Here she is finished.

Before :(


After :)


I ended up spending $50 on primer, and $50 on paint. I bought 28 knobs for my cupboards and 14 pulls for my drawers and spent just under $300 on all of the hardware. That's a grand total of $400.
When I called around for bids, the lowest one came in at $3,000. By doing it myself, I saved $2,600...BOO-YA.
So...if you're thinking about giving your kitchen a facelift, I say do it. It's not as hard, scary or expensive as you think.

Linking to:

Funky Junk Interiors

12 comments:

  1. I love love love the cabinets painted white!

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  2. You really did a great job. You should be very proud of yourself. It looks beautiful. Did you use a brush, small roller? Any particularly paint tricks that you would want to pass on?

    Again, congratulations on a wonderful Kitchen Revamp!

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  3. saw your post on Better After, love the new cabinets. Did you sand them first?

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  4. What a difference! Thank you for the tip on the primer and paint...I have been debating on painting my cabinets for a while now... oh and the backs plash you chose is awesome!

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  5. You've confirmed my thoughts about white cabinets (now I just have to get up the guts to start doing it). Please give details on the backsplash -- so awesome!

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  6. I love this! I have been thinking for the last year that I really wanted to paint my cabinets white.. I have good cabinets in that I don't need to replace them but I hate them. I want white... and silver hardware... This is gorgeous.. I don't have as many as you do (unfortunately) and if you want to get rid of those tall ones beside the oven-- I can give em a good home!

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  7. Found your post from Better After.

    I'm thinking about doing this, but thought it would be too much work. Did you sand them first? Or just apply primer over the original cabinets?

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  8. I also have similar questions- did you sand the cabinets first? Will you be showing how you created the backsplash and such? We are closing on our first home next week, and we have the same oak cabinet look you have going on, and my husband swears he thinks I'll screw up the cabinets if I paint them white. Now I can show him how great your cabinets look!

    Also, how did you install the under cabinet lighting? Are they hardwired or the plug-in type? I am simply in awe!

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  9. Hi there! I wanted to let you know that I have featured this post as one of my September bookmarks -- "Bookmarked on the Boardwalk". Feel free to stop by, take a look at your project as well as the others, and grab a button! You will find it HERE:

    http://wwwbobbypinsboardwalk.blogspot.com/2010/10/septembers-boardwalk-bookmarks.html

    If you're not a follower of my blog, I would love for you to sign up to follow. It will make it easier for me to see your future projects through my "reader", and of course, I always return the "follow"! Congrats on a fabulous project!

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  10. I LOVE how your kitchen turned out! Looks so much better white. Just came across your blog and I'm a new follower.

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  11. So amazing! The whole feel of the room changed. I love it!

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  12. BEAUTIFUL transformation!!! Don't you just LOVE that sticky-no-sanding-needed primer??! I used Zissner 1-2-3 and it works SO well. I've painted cabinets and all kinds of furniture with it as my base coat. I will do pretty much anything to get out of sanding, so it's a life-saver in my book.

    Now if I can just work up the courage to ask my landlords if I can paint our kitchen cabinets...it would make SUCH a huge difference!!! Why am I so nervous?! The worst they can say is no.

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