Kitchen Transformation: Painting it White

So here is the kitchen before we started our update.  It looked okay, but the orange-ish builder grade cabinets just weren’t my style.  My dream kitchen consists of crisp white cabinets, subway tile, a lower bar between the kitchen and dining room, stainless steel appliances….ahhh the list goes on.  But we had to start somewhere, and that somewhere was with paint!    

The project started by empting out the kitchen piece by piece and cabinet by cabinet.  Luckily we were able to shift most of the stuff over into the dining room.      

I used the kitchen island to create a makeshift cooking station complete with microwave, coffee pot, toaster, and cook top.  I figured with these appliances I could brave it a couple of days without my kitchen.  Some people would be fine without a kitchen for several days…..but not this girl.  I live in my kitchen so while it was under construction it was like missing my right arm.  Some words to the wise…..if you are planning a similar project have some meals planned in advance that you can heat up in the microwave (like soup), put in the croc pot, or fry over a cook top.        

I also made a little makeshift station with dishes, measuring cups, bowls, Tupperware, etc. so I could have easy access to the essentials during the painting bonanza.  This was a lifesaver and stopped me from ripping my hair out from the frustration of not being able to find anything.  These last two pictures are proof of how neurotic I can be at times…….but it leads me to organization and piece of mind so I’m okay with it.         

All of the cabinets slowly emptied out and we were ready to get down to business!          

Well…..all the cabinets except the pantry that I just organized.  That seemed like it would be a bit of a bizznitch to put back together so I elected to tape around it with plastic.  I guess I should explain/defend the dumping of the kitchen contents as opposed to just taping plastic around it.  Dust is small.  It gets everywhere.  It is the honey badger of home reno projects….it doesn’t give a shit if all your dishes are clean….it’s gunna get all up in there and settle all over it.  I thought it would be easier to remove everything and put it back in than spending days or weeks cleaning out all of the dust because I didn’t tape the plastic well enough.               

Here are all the materials you will need: drop cloths, plastic gloves, respirator mask, 120 grit sand paper, sand paper for electric sander, 2 inch brush, small art brush, regular paint roller and fine paint roller (looks like a sponge), frog tape, and semigloss latex paint.  Also in the picture is a product called Floetrol, which is a product that is added to paint to eliminate brush and roller marks.  It was recommended by the lovely people at Home Depot to help make sure paint brush marks didn’t show up on our cabinets.  It also thins the paint out.  If you cabinets have heavy wood grain like ours did I wouldn’t recommend this product.  We didn’t have a problem with the stroke marks showing, however the paint was so thin it would settle into the wood grain so we ended up putting on a lot more coats than we originally should have.                   

First you take all the hinges and doors off.  Remember the part about me being a little…well…neurotic?  Soo I kind of marked all the hinges and doors to make sure they went back in the right place.  It was a good idea in theory but in the chaos of it all we ended up saying “screw it” and just took it as it came.                     

If this is something you can keep organized all the power to you!  After several days of plastic and paint everywhere my spirit was broken and I gave up on the organization part.                       

When all the doors came off the real muscle work started.  I took all the doors down into our basement to get them ready to prep for paint.                         

And then our kitchen looked like this.  I took a moment to enjoy the peace before the chaos started.                           

Next I taped up all the plastic.  I wrapped the stove up like a mummy because dust in the stove crevices = not a good situation.  I taped up the space between the kitchen and the dining room and the walkway to the basement.  Not to mention the counter tops and the entire floor.  Every brush stoke has the potential to drip paint and anything that could be damaged by said paint needs to be wrapped up or have plastic over it.  I taped up the spaces between the kitchen and the other rooms to prevent dust from traveling and setting everywhere.                             

I taped up my spices good and they seemed to survive the dust storm.                               

Then it was time to get serious so I busted out the electric sander.  After this there was no going back!                                

When you are sanding don’t forget to wear your respirator mask.  Inhaling all that dust isn’t pretty.  I also took some sexy pictures of myself in the mask……but they didn’t turn out to be so pretty so I decided to leave them out of the tutorial.                                  

I then sanded and sanded until I couldn’t sand any more.  I am proud to say that I did all the steps in the first part of the kitchen tutorial on my own!  From the taking off the cabinet doors, to the taping and putting up the plastic, and the sanding down the cabinet faces.  Only several minor calls were made to the hubby throughout the day, and if I can manage to get through this without gouging out the cabinets or having a door knock me unconscious when I’m taking it off the hinges, anything is possible!