Yes, you can paint your kitchen cabinets yourself!
We moved into our last house in late October of 2013 and the first several months we spent unpacking, organizing, hanging pictures, and painting the rooms that we absolutely couldn’t live with. Believe it or not, we hosted not one but two Christmas gatherings by December that year. In addition we were in a new place and while I had started my staging business in another town, I was really trying to also network and meet new realtors in my new area.
We spent a lot of time in the adjoining kitchen and family area and by late spring, there were some things I just couldn’t live with anymore. All the dark cabinets along with the dark countertops and wallpaper were just not my style and making the room feel dark and very closed in.
Kitchen Before
First I removed the wallpaper using Wallpaper Remover. I repainted the wall Sherwin Williams Balanced Beige (my go to color that is a beige gray that works everywhere). This was stage one.
Then that fall I learned about Rustoleum’s Cabinet Transformation Kits that Lowe’s had. Since I was going to DIY this project and from the pictures you can tell we had a lot of cabinets (blessing for storage and curse for having to paint them), I didn’t really have a place where I could sand them so this product was great for me. In total I spent $350 on the paint kits. It comes with the deglosser to remove the old grime and finish, the scrubbing pad to use with it, the self leveling paint, and the antiquing finish if you want to use that (I did not want that look so I skipped that step). The only other supplied I had to purchase were paint brushes and latex gloves (for the deglosser). I had old rags and towels I used to wipe off the deglosser.
Kitchen After
Lower Cabinet and Island are Federal Gray
Upper Cabinets are Pure White
Lower Cabinet and Island are Federal Gray
Upper Cabinets are Pure White
Lower Cabinet and Island are Federal Gray
Upper Cabinets are Pure White
Everyone who came into our kitchen after this couldn’t believe how much bigger it looked because of the light cabinets. I loved the tuxedo look and the having dark cabinets on the bottom were easier to keep clean.
Lessons Learned
If I had to do it again and was using this same system and technique, I would have used a primer for the white cabinets. I didn’t need one for the lower cabinets and it took about 2 coats but I ended up using 4 coats of what they call the Bond coat for the upper cabinets and had to buy extra kits at $50 apiece just to get more paint.
I think since I completed this project, paint in general has come a long way but this kit made it easy to get everything I needed, especially for a first time cabinet painter. If you have somewhere to be able to take them to use a sprayer, you would still use a deglosser and then could prime and paint the cabinets using a sprayer.
Was it worth it?
Yes, Yes Yes! It was worth the time and effort and the $350 to transform these cabinets. Since then I have used the same technique to update the wet bar in the basement of the same house and bathroom and kitchen cabinets in an AirBnB rental cabin.
The final project in this kitchen was to hire a friend who is a contractor to replace the tile with white subway tile and grout it with PolyBlend Grout in Pewter. The major expense for this part of the project was the labor since the tile I chose is very inexpensive. The tiling project came in at about $1750 total to remove the old tile and install the new and for the materials.
You can do it!
Your turn! This is totally a doable DIY project on a budget so grab your brush and get to painting! Share your results with me by posting them to Instagram or stories and tagging me @fynhome!
