Wednesday, March 20, 2013

DIY: Cabinet Makeover

As I previously posted about, we recently moved and have been overhauling our house. One of my favorite rooms in our house is the kitchen, and we changed just about everything! We got new counters, back splash, and appliances. In order to be more cost effective we decided to paint our cabinets instead of buying new ones. I must admit, I was skeptical at first,  I wasn't sure if painted cabinets would look nice or cheap or just plain bad. However, they turned out fabulous! I found a bunch of tutorials online and went from there.

Materials:
1. Paint (semi-gloss in a paint/primer mix)
2. Sandpaper
3. Electric sander or hand sander
4. Paintbrush
5. Paint roller
6. Any extras you want to update (Example: knobs, hinges)

Directions:
1. Take off all of your cabinets and lay them out on a clean surface (garage is a good place, or in your house on top of an old sheet). Make sure you know which cabinet door went where, some people suggest you write it on the back-I didn't do that.
2. Sand! Our cabinets were already white, but they weren't done well. We didn't sand them all the way down, just lightly sanded them. You want it sanded enough to where there is a rough surface, it helps the paint to stick and stay.
3. Wipe your cabinets/drawer fronts down so they are nice and clean.

4. Paint! Start with the paint brush first, covering all the edges and corners. Next use your roller to
paint the rest. How many coats you have to paint will depend on your color. I painted mine an off-white color, I did 3 coats on the front. Wait at least 4 hours between coats. Once dry, turn them over and paint the back. I did 1 coat on the back side.

5. When your cabinets are fully dry you can hang them back up. Once up, you can add your knobs.





BEFORE
(sorry, I didn't get a good before shot)
 AFTER
 (we also tore out the section of cabinets above the counter to open it up. There is one cabinet that we still have to get up)