Kitchen makeover on a budget
Painting & New hardware Kitchen Cabinets
When we bought this house we didn't like the look of the kitchen. We were not sure how we wanted it. We started looking in books and online for ideas. Finally we found an inspiration picture off Pintrest. Here it is-
You can see in the picture it has white cabinets, dark wood floors and a wood counter top. That is the look we are going for. We found other pictures that are like it but kept looking back to this one. Our kitchen looks nothing like this but we can picture it in our heads. Next we researched over the Internet the best way to paint over stained cabinets. We found a great way. We used the stuff called liquid sand paper. It works great.
We bought it at Home Depot and it was not expensive. It goes a long way, we bought two bottles but returned one. We didn't need it. We used gloves to apply it and an old rag. You just wipe it on and it takes off any residue and gloss your cabinets have. Please do yourself a favor and don't skip this step. Next we took all the doors off and all the hardware off. That was easy, we threw everything away. We were replacing all with new chrome ones. That alone makes the remodel look like a million bucks never mind the paint.
Next you need to buy stain kill paint. We bought a better quality stain kilz paint. We did not want to have to do this again, it is a lot of work. It pays to do this right the first time. After every door is off, each one gets two coats of stain kill paint front and back. It takes days. You will need room to keep them in, a basement maybe. We used an empty spare room.
You will need to do the same to the base cabinets on the wall also. We left everything in them. Just cover the counter top with a cloth. You will need to let each coat dry overnight.
As you can see in this picture it is a lot of prep work and taking things apart but it is totally worth it. Wait till you see the ending result.
you might see in this picture above we numbered the doors as we took them off. The paint went over the numbers so you might not need to do that. You will see that only certain doors fit in certain places. You don't need to number them.
A recap for you:
1. Wipe all cabinets down with the liquid sandpaper
2. Take all doors and hardware off
3. Paint two coats of stain kilz on all surface front and back of all doors, allow 24 between coats. You might want to light sand between coats if you find any drips.
Now you are read for paint. We used a semi gloss white. We use semi gloss on just about anything we do. It is easy to wipe clean. We think it has just the right shine. You can use what ever color you like, go crazy. Its paint and if you dint like it you can always change it. Paint is cheap. We have a lot of cabinets so we did not want to do this again for a long time. We are spending more money on a good paint so it will last. We used a latex paint. It came out great.
We did the tops first, then the bottoms. The over all change in the kitchen was amazing. If we had to pay someone to do this or to get new cabinets it would have cost us a fortune. This was One gallon of paint and really the biggest expense was the hardware. Again totally worth it I am sure we will be happy for years to come.
In the picture above we have one more door left under the sink but mostly complete. Even the floor. Our next big job will be the counter tops. It kinda looks like the picture at the start of the blog, our inspiration picture. We say close enough on my budget we are happy.
