THE DE-BEIGE-IFICATION OF OUR KITCHEN IS ESSENTIALLY COMPLETE! THE DE-BEIGE-IFICATION OF OUR KITCHEN IS ESSENTIALLY COMPLETE! These two photos are what our kitchen looked like when we toured the house before buying. To bring it to this point of being changed into a more crisp, clean delight we have changed the wall color, covered the countertops in white concrete, painted the tile backsplash, and now – painted the cabinetry.
I thought about painting kitchen cabinets like it’s a really huge endeavor, but we found it not bad. Sure, during the process the kitchen looked a little hectic (not pictured!) because you could see everything in the cabinets (how do people do all open shelving?), but it was not hard deal with.
Only six work days! And that includes one day of just cleaning and taking the hardware off and another day of just putting the hardware back on.
And for only six work days we still did not cut corners, opting to both sand and prime. The materials are few. The method is simple.
MATERIALS
- Mrs. Meyers rosemary scented multi purpose soap
- 60 and 120 grit sand paper
- Kilz premium high hide stain blocker primer
- Behr “ultra pure white” in high gloss paint
- My all-time favorite brush for painting
- Paint trays and four inch rollers
TIME AND PROCESS
- Friday – clean everything; remove hardware from cabinets; organize doors and drawers in work area
- Saturday – sand everything; dust and wipe down everything; prime cabinet bases, drawer fronts, and “a” side of doors
- Monday – prime “b” side of doors
- Tuesday – paint two coats on cabinet bases, drawer fronts, and “a” side of doors
- Thursday – paint two coasts on “b” side of doors
- Friday – re-install doors and drawers!
I opted to not plastic off the interiors of the cabinets because I’d rather just do the work of cleaning the sanding debris off the dishes and insides at the end than the work of doing that. It’s a toss up though they are I think about equal in annoyance level.
[Chanting] IT LOOKS SO GOOD. IT LOOKS SO GOOD.
rug (similar) | articulating sconces | calendar | cabinet knobs | drawer pulls | seascape print
You may be thinking what I was at first, asking myself if it was kind of a waste to inherit almost white cabinets and then go through the hassle of painting them all just to make them a bright white. This is a case study in how much the white you pick matters and how varying shades make a difference. We are totally glad we painted them.
AND my inherited mostly white (compared to many people who have to paint over wood) did not go to waste. Painting the insides of the cabinets is a significant extra amount of work (more than double even?) but if you skip it then you still have orange wood or whatever on the insides which can be ok if you’re cool with it but not ideal. So I’m still grateful for my inherited off-white cabinets because I got to skip painting the insides, and they still look generally white (like you think they’re the exterior color just plus shadows) and not BRIGHT WOOD when you have a door open.
There are a few minor lingering cream colored things – little parts of the dishwasher and fridge and then also the sink basin, but baby who cares. Those are all pretty expensive to replace and quite unnoticeable to me.
This means phase one of our kitchen is finished! Now I begin saving up for phase two which includes super exciting things. New flooring! Widening the opening between the kitchen and living room! Crown moulding! AND AN ISLAND!