Farmhouse Kitchen Makeover Reveal

6 Materials
$500
6 Weeks
Medium
This kitchen makeover has been a long time in the making. I’ve stared at my kitchen cabinets for many a moon dreaming about painting them; envisioning a bright, airy space where the hubs and I could prepare meals and entertain company. I also wanted to include it on the blog as part of home tours and seasonal decor posts.
Here's the before photo. This picture was taken shortly after we moved into the house. It was a nice enough kitchen, but it just didn’t “pop” like I wanted it to.


We didn’t change everything in one big swoop. A few years ago we repainted the main living areas of the house from the cocoa color you see in the above photo to the gray it is now (the wall color is Pelican Gray by Benjamin Moore. It does tend to go blue in natural light, so if you don’t like that, be forewarned). We changed out the lights over the kitchen island and above the cabinets a couple of years ago. My husband changed out the tile last year. The only thing left to do was paint the cabinets.
The paint I chose for the cabinets is Valspar Reserve Interior Satin in Ultra White. You can buy it at Lowe’s. Since I chose to use Ultra White, it meant I could grab the paint right off the shelf and buy it without having someone in the paint department add color to it. I kinda liked that.


I worked in sections, taking the cabinet doors off, removing all the hardware, cleaning the doors and cabinet fronts with Krud Kutter, taping off the inner sections of the cabinets I didn’t want to paint with painter’s tape, painted three coats on both sides of the doors and the cabinet fronts letting everything dry thoroughly between coats, attached the new hardware, removed painter’s tape, reattached cabinet doors, rinse and repeat almost every day for six weeks.


I used a paint brush on narrow areas such as the cabinet faces and door fronts and a foam roller on large, flat areas such as the cabinet sides and under the eating bar.
I know a lot of people struggle with whether or not to paint the inside of the cabinets, and as a purist I did too. I thought if I didn’t paint the insides it would look unfinished. I made the decision not to paint the insides purely on the added amount of time it would take to paint them all. We also have built in lazy susans and roll out shelves in some of the cabinets which would have been extremely difficult to paint. I know that if I had tried to paint the cabinet innards, I would still be working on it now and completely hating life instead of typing this. And you know what? It doesn’t look unfinished at all. I just painted the inner part of where the doors hang, taping off the bottom shelf and the sides of the upper shelves with painter’s tape in order to get a clean edge. And the best part? I didn’t have to take everything out of the cabinets!
After six weeks of backbreaking work, I finally got it all done. And honestly? I am in LOVE with the results. It is BETTER than I could have ever imagined. It’s like we have a brand new kitchen! All the other little changes we did beforehand were nice, but painting the cabinets brought everything together and made it gorgeous. Yes, I know I’m bragging my kitchen up, but I don’t care – I am SO happy that I love the results!


You can see more after photos and more details on this makeover by visiting my blog The Painted Hinge through the link below.


Thanks for checking out my kitchen makeover!


Michelle
The Painted Hinge
Suggested materials:
  • Valspar Reserve Interior Satin in Ultra White   (Lowe's)
  • Krud Kutter   (Amazon)
  • XFasten Professional Blue Painters Tape, 1.5"x 60Yds   (Amazon)
See all materials
The Painted Hinge
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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Frequently asked questions
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  • Angie Colburn Warner Angie Colburn Warner on Nov 30, 2019

    Exactly what I’ve been looking for. You have inspired me to begin my Kitchen since you have convinced me I can paint the cabinets without taking everything out of them. Your cabinets do look beautiful. The entire remodel is beautiful.

    I have 4 questions:

    1)Did you do any light sanding before you began painting?

    2)Did you ever consider painting your Island a darker color like a Blue/gray or gray/blue?

    3)Also, did you or will you put a polyurethane Coat or a protective top coat on the cabinets in the near future?

    4)How long are you thinking the paint will hold up! It’s just the hubs and me and I’m a neat Nancy anyway so hopefully not a lot of bumping into them and nicking them. I don’t have fingernails but if I did would they chip the paint around the handles when opening?


    Thank you!

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