This is just another iteration of our kitchen. When we were newlyweds and poor, we ripped out the 1970s cabinets and installed hand-me-down cabinets from Devin's parents. Plz go look at that post and just laugh with me. We installed super enormous gray tile on the floor, which was a huge mistake because the tile was uglyyyy and Devin had never done tile before so it came out looking bumpy (sorry, Dev! It's not your fault!). Then, we grouted our subway tile backsplash with white grout (another ugly mistake), so Devin redid the entire backsplash with new subway tile and GRAY grout one weekend last year.
So ya see, this is like the 5th version of our kitchen! We still plan on getting new countertops (I'm open to suggestions if you have any!), so that will be the 6th and final version of the kitchen.
More of our home renovation projects (with hilariously bad pictures!):
To paint our cabinets, we used Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations, which worked ok because they include everything you need (except brushes and drop cloths). The kit includes abrasive pads for degreasing/deglossing, way more deglosser (liquid sandpaper type thing) than you need, 2 small cans of paint, and plentyyyy of protective clear coat. The downside is that when we ran out of the paint, we had to buy a whole second kit, even though all we needed was the paint and none of the other things! Total, it was $160, which isn't bad considering we didn't have to spend thousands on brand new cabinets.
Things to consider before deciding to paint your cabinets:
- Your kitchen items (dinner ingredients, dishes, panini press, forks, everything) will be relocated to a new spot in your house.
- A cabinet painting kit doesn't include enough paint for you to use a paint sprayer (the faster painting option), so you'll be using a brush + roller for everything.
- Your cabinet doors will need a place to be set up so they can dry. Optimal places: a garage so pollen and dirt don't stick to a freshly painted cabinet door. NOT optimal places: setting up cabinet doors on your dining room table.
- Paint smells strongly. And open windows to air out the house MAKES YOU SO COLD WHEN IT IS WINTER.
- Dry times for the paint means you're stuck waiting til the next day before you can even do a second coat of paint/protective coat.
- A cabinet painting kit also doesn't include enough paint for you to paint the INSIDE of your cabinets, just the cabinet doors and the outside cabinet frames. But do you really want everyone to see your old cabinet color inside your cabinets every time you reach for a plate?
- There are multiple steps you have to go through before your project is 100% done: De-greasing, de-glossing, painting coat #1, painting coat #2, clear protective coat.
- Scrubbing the grease off of every surface is by far the worst step.
Did we consider most of those steps before jumping in? Noooope. This took us 2 weeks (with a break on the weekend) where we would work on the cabinet project during naptime and after the kids went to bed. And our kitchen is TINY, so I can't even imagine trying to do this on a normal sized kitchen that has more than 6 cabinets. We still haven't painted the insides of the cabinet doors, but maybe eventually we will 😉
It was a fairly annoying project since we decided to do it in the winter (open windows made our heat run almost constantly!) and paint all the cabinet doors in our dining room (picnic dinners in the living room for 2 weeks...). But, it only cost us $160 total, which is way less than new kitchen cabinets.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
What projects have you been working on recently? What would you renovate in your home?
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