Kitchen cabinet makeover | 2015

Kitchen cabinet makeover

Isn’t a kitchen cabinet makeover the stuff of dreams? I mean really. It seems like it is. There are certainly clever and fairly quick ways to make any room in the house feel like it’s ‘new’ or at least refreshed. Pillows, painting and curtains will generally do the trick. But the kitchen part of a house seems a little more daunting unless it’s a tiny little teeny kitchen with one cupboard.

Let me introduce you to our new kitchen cabinets.

Tuddily-un-tun-tah!

It’s fabulous, huh?

I grew up living all over the place which meant that a lot of things were constantly changing.

Constantly.

Besides the usual things like crushes, memories, and the number of people in our family changing, you’d need to add schools, friends, teachers, homes, states, and neighborhoods — and really bad hair years — to the list. Consequently, I like change. No. [Erase, erase.] I love change — especially the kind that I can look at– like in a room or a house or a closet. Or my hair.

If I’ve lived in a place for two years [maybe two and a half] that is way [WAY ] too long, unless there is change afoot.

We’ve lived in this house for ten years [insert wide-eyed-semi-alarmed emoji here] which in dog years means wow.

There’s been quite a bit of change going on around here and I’m all kinds of thrilled about sharing it — one bit at a time — starting with the kitchen cupboards.

All of the changes, except this one, fall neatly under the category of DIY.

The kitchen cupboards fell under that category until I had that one very important conversation with myself.

“Self,” I said rather casually.

“Close your eyes and see ourselves prepping, taping, masking, numbering, dismantling, carrying, organizing, sanding, weeping, sanding, crying, sanding, sobbing…”

It’s at that point where my self begged me to stop so I did. I trust me.

[Cleansing breath of relaxation.]

High five.

It’s officially off of the DIY list.

We’d had a local painting/refinishing company [Drabs2Fabs] bid on the cabinets. The husband and wife team came over and within a few days sent us an estimate. There wasn’t a single idea in my head about how much this kind of venture would cost. I figured there would be some saving and needed to know how much.

Holly [the owner] assured me they would honor the estimate until I’d saved my money up OR painted them myself. [BaAAaaaHHhaaaAhhhhAaaaa! No way. Remember the previous conversation about not painting them myself.]

I saved the money and they honored the original estimate even though it was a year later.

A couple of weeks before we were actually scheduled for this wondrous transformation, the painters called on a Saturday and said they had an unexpected opening for the following Monday.

Oh! Let’s do this.

Everything needed to be taken out of the cupboards and drawers which was no small task considering what has been stuffed into some of those spaces.

The before kitchen.

It’s not that I didn’t love my kitchen cupboards as they were, because I did.

[The top photo is closer to the real and true color.]

You’ll notice that there’s a lot of wood in the house. A lot.

You’ll also notice that the surfaces — all of them — are clean, uncluttered, and in spit — spot — tip — top shape.

That’s how it is all of the time.

Yuh.

~grin~

They came in Monday morning and within 2 hours [two!] the team had completely taken off every drawer and cabinet door, taped ‘n’ papered off the ceiling, floor, and cupboard spaces — everything we didn’t want painted.

 They numbered all of the doors and corresponding drawers/cupboards.

Aaaaaand drew of map of remembering.

You get that this is what any person painting these cupboards would need to do, right?

And it’s at this point that I’m nearly out of my mind with feeling grateful because it was crossed off of my diy list.

It would have been a nightmare. A nightmare of astonishing proportions.

They draped and taped plastic across the room to protect the other rooms from overspray.

And then they painted.

The cabinet doors and drawer fronts were done at a different location altogether.

They painted with the same color we used for the trim and ceilings in our house. It’s not a stark white. We used Cottage White which I love, love, love.

The cupboards were beautiful when the painting was completed — but — I didn’t want the ceiling and trim to be the same color as the cabinets.

Part of our kitchen cabinet makeover would include a glaze. A beautiful glaze.

Armed with my iPhone and under peculiar lighting circumstances, I shall attempt to show you the difference between not glazed and glazed.

Not glazed.

Glazed.

Not glazed.                                                                                                                                         Glazed.

A closer look at glazed.

I love the kitchen.

I deliberated about painting the cupboards a color other than white [that living space would be able to carry any color] but decided that it would be easier to change color anywhere else in the room — anywhere else. A kitchen cabinet makeover is no small thing at all. It’s an investment.

Unless you have two kitchen cupboards.

Painting the island, making new curtains, painting chairs or stools, or adding a new table would be easier [and considerably less costly] than painting the cupboards.

Can’t wait to show you what else has been going on around here to change things up a bit.

Would you paint your kitchen cupboards a color?