A Kitchen Transformation

I'm so excited to finally reveal the kitchen project that has consumed the last 2+ weeks at our house.

You may have guessed from the photo in this post that our kitchen cabinets were getting a make over.  I've never been a fan of the builder grade honey oak cabinetry in our house and remedying that situation finally made it's way to the top of my to-do-list.  After much consideration and research I decided to roll up my sleeves and give it a go myself.  Enter Rust-Oleum's Cabinet Transformation kit. 

Of course, there are countless methods for painting/refinishing cabinetry.  I found this to be the least intimidating because the kit included every product you need from start to finish.  I'm not the most skilled or experienced DIYer so choosing from the myriad of degreasers, primers, paints, top coats, etc. was a little daunting for me.  That and it didn't require sanding.  Sold.

I watched the instructional DVD and read the printed instructions several times before having the courage to get started.  It was tedious and at time labor intensive, but the steps are quite simple:

• Remove doors, drawers and all hardware
• Clean with soap and water
• Scrub vigorously with deglosser (this was by far the worst part of the process)
• Apply bond coat (this is actually the paint color), let dry for 3 hours
• Apply 2nd bond coat, let dry for 3 hours
• Apply optional decorative glaze (I skipped this step as it wasn't the look I was going for)
• Apply top coat, let dry for 1 hour
• Cure overnight

When you consider each cabinet door requires 4 coats of paint (2 per side) and 3 hours of dry time between each coat, you can imagine how time consuming it was.  The fact that I was working mostly after Jack's bedtime and missed 4 days due to a business trip meant the whole thing took just over 2 weeks.  On the plus side, all of the wait time turned out to be a really good thing.  It forced me to take breaks and kept me from getting sloppy and burnt out.

Okay, enough chatter.  Let's see some action!

Here is the kitchen before.

Here are some of the steps along the way.

I tried to stay organized by numbering each door and it's corresponding hardware.

The work station.  We didn't have room to do all the cabinets at once (nor did I have big enough chunks of time) so I worked in batches.  Drew is quite happy to have his garage back.

One batch curing, another batch waiting to go.

I also spray painted all of the hardware.  Bye bye brass...hello black!

Half and half.

All framed out.

I just have to add, a somewhat unintentional consequence of living without cabinet doors for several days is the desire to clean out all of your cupboards.  They've never been so organized.

And finally, here is the after.  Including a new (and much improved) light fixture over the table.

We love it!  To us, the black cabinets brought the kitchen back to the 21st century instead of the mid-90's look it was rocking before.  It also feels a little more custom instead of the basic builder grade that it actually is.

We're not quite done.  I've already selected a new paint color for the walls and hardware for the doors and drawers which I'm certain is going to kick it up another notch.  Those details should be finished in the next few weeks.  I'm also on the hunt for a new window treatment on the sliding glass doors.  Then (much further) down the road, we intend to replace the linoleum with wood floors.

Still a work in progress, but definitely a huge improvement.  And considering we have just under $300 invested to date (including the new light fixture), quite an impact for not much money.

I gotta admit, I'm pretty proud of myself.  And while it was worth every minute, I'm pretty glad it's done, too!