Fancied Up Cabinets
3 Materials
$20
3 Hours
Medium
Cabinets need not be boring. They can be distinctive and attractive. Here are just two ways to change yours with very little fuss.
We all have these standard cabinets in our bathrooms that are ... um.... how should I put it nicely... Blah? And, these have handles! Not all of them do! Besides handles and knobs, what else can be done? You can accent the shadow lines. See where the trim meets the door panels? That is a perfect place to accent with a metallic pen.
I used these. One is a broad tip and the other is a medium tip. If you have a lot of cabinets and are planning to do them all, you will want to make sure that you have LOTS of pens because they tend to run out quickly. These are archival quality and I am counting on them to last until the cabinets are refinished.
I must confess, that I was not as prepared as I hope you will be. I ended up running back to the nearby Walmart and grabbing these pens. They came four to a pack and cost the same as the other ones individually. They were the exact same color and looked the same on the cabinets. (I checked first on an inside cupboard door before I used them.)These are supposed to be permanent and fade resistant, so I hope they will last the same.
You can also see that I used the same stamp that I put on the walls of my bathroom and copied the pattern onto the false front plate of the cabinet to tie the cabinet and patterns on the wall together. (See post of Bathroom Stamping for more of an explanation.) To place the stamp exactly, I had to center the middle diamond and then space the two stamps equally - turning one upside down to make the pattern work.
You can see how the patterns went together in this photo. Next, I moved onto the kitchen. Using the same pens, I tried my lining out on the inside of a kitchen cupboard door. I liked how it looked so I proceeded to mark a few of the shadow lines on those cupboards, too. The two styles of cabinet doors were very different. So the style needed to change.
These have a raised center panel, but still have definite shadow lines. I let the pen follow those lines as I drew along them. Just press lightly, sometimes going over them a couple of times (as your pen runs out of ink) and before you know it, you have beautiful, distinctive, one-of-a-kind cabinets.
On the bottom with drawers.
On the tops. One thing I must warn you about. CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN your cupboard doors BEFORE you start this project - especially the ones over the stove and/or microwave. The oils from cooking can really make a mess on the doors and the inks won't stick as well as you would need them to. Simply wash them down with soapy water, rinse them with clean water and dry them with a clean, dry cloth. You'll be ready to decorate in no time!
It really does make a difference when you can distinctly see the shadow lines.
And people pay big dollars to get their cabinets pre-painted like this all the time. Just think, You can do it for the cost of a few pens and your time and patience! Happy Decorating!
Resources for this project:
Stamp used previously on walls
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Comments
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2 of 30 comments
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Another idea, cleaning cabinets are hard, use an sos pad, it cuts through the grease with ease.
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Love it!
Frequently asked questions
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won't these pens rub off? I am a painter and have never had much luck with these pens in my paintings. I love the look...but have to wonder about the durability
could you please tell me what colour of metallic pen did you use on a dark chocolate cabinet?
You show Apple Barrel paint in the supplies, what did you use them for? What a wonderful idea BTW!