Since moving into our new home, I have been itching to redo our kitchen cabinets. With being in the last trimester of the pregnancy, I really wasn’t feeling very excited to do it but I knew that I needed to get it done before the baby came. I knew that I wouldn’t have much time after he was here and I just wanted to be able to relax and enjoy our home without thinking about such a big project.
So, I started to research tips on painting oak cabinets. We had used a cabinet transformation kit on our last home but I didn’t want to brush them. Let’s be honest, an 8 month pregnant woman sitting and squatting all day painting would not be good. I decided that I wanted them to be white with no glaze. Mark was a bit hesitant with the no glaze but I reassured him that if we didn’t like it plain we could always add it later.
I took my time on this project because I really wanted to get a professional look. So to start out, I sanded and deglossed everything. The next step was to try and cover up as much of the oak grain as possible. I read up on how to do that and found several ideas. I chose to use spackling on the doors because it seemed to be a little easier. Well, it was a VERY long and frustrating process. By the time I was done spackling and sanding, I thought I had ruined our cabinets. Not a fun feeling to deal with! Mark calmed me down and convinced me that he thought it worked and to try and prime one of them. I took his word and primed one to see how it would look. It was like magic, the wood grain was filled and it looked flawless. I guess it was worth all that time!
I bought a spray gun to help me with the painting process and can I just say that I am totally in love with it! It did an awesome job and helped me cut days off of the project! I sprayed the primer on the doors and rolled and brushed the cabinet bases while they were drying. It always is such a long process but I had to remember that I needed to take my time so they would come out looking great. After one coat of priming, I sanded them using fine sand paper. Then I primed and sanded again. Then came the painting process. I ended up going with a Sherman Williams ProClassic water based paint. It hardens like a oil based paint but doesn’t yellow over time and you don’t have to put a top coat on it. I sprayed one coat then sanded and then repeated that same process. I wanted to get as smooth as surface as possible and by taking my time it sure payed off. They turned out so nice! We let them dry a good 24 hours before hanging them again and installing the hardware. I couldn’t be more happy with how they turned out!
We took a few weeks off but then jumped back in to finish the island. I wanted it to be a color and it was really hard to decide. We ended up picking a charcoal blue grey. I wanted our island to be an accent piece so Mark added some board and batten trim and bead board to it. After getting that all nailed and glued on, I began the same process of priming, sanding, and painting. We had decided to add glaze to the island for that additional pop. It took us about a month to get everything all done in the kitchen but it was so worth it. It turned out exactly how I imagined it and we are loving the fact that we can now relax and wait for baby number 4 to join our family!
Before
The Process
The Final Product
