Kitchen Facelift Part Deux

I apologize, but I sometimes don't check the comments on older posts. My bad. Anywho, I just happened to click on my kitchen facelift post and noticed that several of the comments asked the same question..."did you sand before you primed?"

I am here to finally answer that question and I sincerely hope you sweet peeps check back to get your answer. But first a reminder of the before:

and the after:


I'll be perfectly honest...I started out sanding down the cabinets before I primed them, but I stopped halfway through and just primed them without sanding.

I will say, that if the cabinets you are thinking about painting still have a heavy topcoat I would most definatly sand them a bit so your primer sticks. My philosophy is, if you are going to put the work into painting them, wouldn't you like to make sure you prep everything properly so it will last?

Now, I know I didn't follow my own advice, at least not for the last half of my cabinets, but in my defense I had just given birth to my fifth baby and I was running on fumes. If I could do it again, I would most definately sand before priming...even just a little sanding to roughen up the wood a bit. I don't think a super, heavy duty, sanding is necessary...just enought to give the primer something to cling to.

I hope that helps...oh, and if you care to know, I used a medium grit sanding block to do the trick. If you have a little mouse sander I would recommend that. It would cut your sanding time down immensely. I just recently purchased one for around $40. It might be a worthy investment as you'll save yourself money in the long run by not acquiring a sever case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Oh, and I opted for rolling the paint on as opposed to brushing. I feel it's a little quicker and if you invest in rollers made especially for doors and trim you will get a nice, even coverage. I know I mentioned it in my initial post, but I'll say it again. Use.good.paint. I love the paint from Sherwin Williams. It's expensive...$50 a gallon, but I finished my whole kitchen with just one gallon. I would also recommend Sherwin Williams brand Adhesion Primer too. That stuff is amazing.

The second question/comment was regarding the backsplash.
The hubby and I duked it out for a long time before we finally settled on something. The hubs tends to be a little more comtemporary and modern as far as design goes. I, however, am more traditional.
How did we come to an agreement, you may be asking? Well, we ended up using traditional materials...in this case travertine, but with a modern styling...subway tiles for under the cabinets and mosaic tiles (travertine and glass) for behind the cooktop and hood. It was a happy compromise and we are both very pleased with the result. I think we ended up spending around $500 total for the entire backsplash. Not too shabby.

I hope these pointers help...I can't wait to hear how it goes. I'd love to see your before and after pics.

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.

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