Kitchen Makeover

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ByMarci


I am SOOOO excited to being sharing with you our kitchen makeover!!!!  Some of you may think I’m crazy because there was nothing wrong with the wood cabinets before we painted them, BUT I’ve just noticed recently that overall wood cabinets are phasing out.  New construction homes are all going with painted cabinets.  Our dark stained wood cabinets were starting to fade pretty badly in some areas and we also never installed hardware in the four years we’ve lived here.  So, we were going to have to do some work on them anyways!  Here are a few before pictures of the kitchen…..

Cabinets on left wall of kitchen over stove

Group of cabinets to the left of kitchen sink and directly in front of drawer side to the island

 

Group of cabinets under the bar and over fridge

 

Group of cabinets under the kitchen sink

 

Not a good picture (taken from my cell phone) of the island before primer and paint

In the beginning, my plan was to paint the entire kitchen myself!  So, I started on the island because it seemed less overwhelming, being so much smaller.  I researched paint for cabinets until I was blue in the face.  I talked to the guys at Benjamin Moore and between their advice and the cabinet paint review I read on Dear Lillie, I decided to go with a low VOC primer by Benjamin Moore called Advance Primer and the Auora Paint in Fieldstone for the island.  I first drilled the holes for the new hardware.  I chose to use these silver pulls by Martha Stewart from Home Depot for the drawers….

They were a bit of a pain to install because they have double holes that have to line up PERFECTLY and if you don’t install them perfectly level its very obvious!  So I was a nervous wreck doing this, but I found this very helpful tool at Home Depot that I used to help me install the knobs accurately…..

And these pulls for the cabinet doors, also from Home Depot (sold in a 10 pack)…

After drilling the hardware holes, I removed all of the doors and drawer plates, then I sanded everything down with a 120 grit sanding block.  Then I wiped the sanding dust off with a cheese cloth and then again with a dry towel.  Next, on a Friday afternoon, I painted 1 coat of primer over the entire surface of the island and let that set over the weekend…

This is the island primed with all of the doors and drawer faceplates off (minus the trashcan)
 Then on Monday morning I painted 1 coat of the Auora paint in Fieldstone with a satin finish, let the paint dry completely overnight, then the next day applied a second coat.  I let that cure for 4 days then it was time put the doors, drawer plates, and hardware back on!  When I went to install the first cabinet door, something really awful happened!  The paint started chipping right down to the bare wood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I wanted to cry and throw up at the same time.  I immediately called the paint store and they sent a paint rep out to my house to look at the island.  After spending an hour with this guy, explaining the steps I took to paint the whole island, he was stumped.  He said I had done everything right and there should be no reason for the chipping, certainly not down to the bare wood. He took the bucket of primer with him and ran the serial numbers through the Benjamin Moore computer system to see if possibly I had gotten a bad batch of primer.  Nope!  Search came up with nothing.  He then said the only reason he could think of that would keep the primer from sticking,  is that the wood must have had damage to it over time from trash/oils.  So as a last ditch effort to keep me from having to redo the island completely, he kindly brought me a can of Polyurethane to hopefully encapsulate the existing paint and keep from further chipping.  So, I touched up the chipping areas and applied 2 very thick coats of Polyurethane to the island and it worked!!!  Thank God!  The paint rep also suggested that to finish painting the rest of the cabinets, I should use Stixx Primer instead of the      Advance Primer.  He said the other primer should have worked but that Stixx was a little better and still low VOC.  Here are some pictures of the finished island…..

 

 

After this ordeal with painting the island myself, there was NO WAY I was painting the rest of the cabinets on my own.  It was just way too stressful and I wanted them done right.  So, I hired a painter to finish the rest of the cabinets.  He used Stixx Primer and Dove Wing-Satin finish in the Advance paint line, both by Benjamin Moore.  He was here for a week with 2 other workers and worked from 7:30-3:30!!!  It would have taken me a month to do what he did and I’m confident in saying it wouldn’t have looked as good!  I am SO pleased with the way it turned out!  Our kitchen looks so much bigger and feels so much more open even though we didn’t change anything structurally.  I wish we would have done this a long time ago!!!  Here are some pictures of the finished product…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  And some good ‘ole Before & Afters…

 

 

 

After the painter finally finished up with the cabinets, he told me that the kitchen walls were going to need to be repainted because he had to do quite a bit of caulking around the cabinets (the builder cut that corner before we bought the house)!  He said he could just do a quick paint match to the existing color, which was VERY YELLOW and yuk!  I just could not bare to shell out the money to have him repaint the kitchen walls in a color I did not like, so  I made a last minute decision to go ahead and paint ALL the walls in our house (minus the bedrooms) with a new color, Revere Pewter by Benjamin!!!  I am SOOOO glad I did!!!  You’ll see what I mean in an upcoming post I plan to do soon.

Hope you’re having a great weekend!  The weather here is gorgeous and it makes me want to do outdoor projects!

Remember, when life hands you lemons, turn them into something lovely!
-Marci

2 Comments

  2. Wow! Repainting those cabinets and shelves dramatically welcomed great lighting on your kitchen. White is definitely the perfect color to make any kitchen look new. In any case, kudos to you for achieving that lovely transformation! Thanks for sharing that! All the best! 🙂

    Arthur Bryant @ Contractor Express

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