Kitchen Cabinet Makeover (Guest Post) | DIY

Truth be told I am not the creative one in the family…that would be my sister.  She always has been, and she always does great things around her home to make it beautiful.  From creating art from items she has around the house, to turning jelly jars into hanging lanterns.  Seriously, girl has skills.  Don’t know why she doesn’t have a blog…wait, yes I do and their names are Phoebe, Sophie, and Jesse (my little loves).  So I asked Kelly to guest post for me after she completely changed the look of her kitchen.  Look for her to guest post again, and make sure to leave a comment giving her some love. Now I am excited to introduce my sister Kelly….

It was three days after Christmas and Kara and her husband Kevin had just left my house. My husband was at work, my kids were playing with their new toys and I was lounging on the couch. As I get up to go make myself some coffee on my new Keurig, it hit me like a big flash! My cabinets are so UGLY. Like so ugly I sang the little song in my head about my cabinets not having an alibi. I bet you all are singing that little ditty right now. You’re welcome!!! Anyway, my cabinets were just plain wood cabinets, no greatness to them. They have been in our house since we built it, and that was about eleven years ago. What to do, what to do? Paint them!!!

So now the questions came. What color? What kind of paint? What do I need? Where do I start? Can I do this by myself?

What color? After consulting with Kara, we thought black or gray. My kitchen is a sage green so these two colors would pop out the green color.  Gray won, a charcoal gray actually called Knight’s Armor. What kind of paint?  This paint is made by Olympic and it already has the primer in it. BONUS!!!! I also got the Semi-gloss sheen so I could wipe spills easily.  I bought only 1 gallon because I knew I just had to do my cabinet faces and edges. Oh, and the nice lady at Lowes said I probably only needed 1 gallon. I did not do the insides because luckily, they were white and that was FINE with me!!

What do I need?  I did research painting cabinets online, a little. Actually I did not read every instruction because some people are just over achievers when it comes to painting cabinets. They take things off hinges, they empty out their cabinets, they have power sanders, they wear masks and coveralls.  So the part I read about getting a sander, uh nope! I got sand paper, just plain not too rough, not too smooth, sandpaper. I also bought two different size sponge brushes and a small sponge roller with refill. Oh and a cute little paint tray that came with my cute mini roller. I also picked up some of that blue trim tape.

Total cost at Lowes for paint, sandpaper, sponges, roller, refill, blue tape and tray- $56.

Where do I start? Now the cabinet over achievers, gotta love em’, probably are not teachers, home on Christmas vacation, with 3 kids running around, so I being one to not follow all instructions in anything I do, and maybe a tad bit lazy, did not take the doors off the hinges. Would it have been easier to paint? Probably, but then I would have to put them all back on, by myself. So, I covered the counters with a sheet and started to sand my heart out. I sanded every cabinet. I have to say the cabinets where I started received the best sanding and the last cabinets, I admit, kind of got a swipe of the sand paper.  Oh well, finished with that. I took the knobs off the cabinets with an electric drill. Yay for electric drills! I put the trim tape where I needed it, ceiling and floor and fridge and stove. Now was the time for the “fun” to begin. Let’s paint!!

The painting started out slow. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. Then, I got in a rhythm – paint roll the fronts, paint roll the backs, sponge brush the creases, paint the edges, repeat. Each cabinet had about 2 good coats on all sides. I realized paint had to dry before the second coat or it just smeared.

I did the whole top portion of the kitchen in one afternoon, and the bottom cabinets the next day. It was more of an undertaking than I first thought, not because it was terribly hard, just time-consuming to get in all the creases. If I can do it, anybody can do it!

My favorite part of the whole process was taking the blue trim tape off, especially if you can get it off in one long piece and it leaves a nice clean line underneath! That is exciting and extremely encouraging when you know you are so close to being finished. When I took off the tape, I did see that some of the lines were not as straight as I wanted, so I used my daughter’s tiny water-color paint brush to fill in where needed. This worked great!!!

I LOVE MY CABINETS!!! They are so pretty now! It makes me want to cook and drink wine and entertain in my kitchen all the time.  The atmosphere is so inviting now and I did not realize how my stainless steel appliances and knobs would POP with the new cabinet color.  I also have paint left over for touch ups. Thank you Lowes lady for urging me to buy just 1 gallon.

Now, I think my doors in the kitchen need to be painted.  Should I paint them gray too? Black?  A different color? What do ya’ll think!