Our DIY Kitchen Renovation

Happy Tuesday friends! I get a lot of questions about our kitchen updates we made shortly after moving into our house. I wanted to share a few before and afters of our kitchen and our experience painting kitchen cabinets for the first time.

This is what our kitchen looks like now

We live in a builder-grade house. Our cabinets were originally short and a dark expresso color. When we purchased our house, we had every intention of having our kitchen redone. Fast forward, we moved in, found out we were expecting another sweet miracle baby and the $$$ added up fast. This is when we decided that surely we could tackle this project ourselves…right? I’m going to just pause right here and tell you that this was a much BIGGER project than either of us had anticipated. Now that it’s done, totally worth all the hard work.

Sean started by removing the tiny pieces of crown molding from the top of each upper cabinet. All of the doors and hardware were also removed and relocated to the garage on stands for painting. Next, he used MDF to build the upper cabinets to the ceiling, closing the large gap above the cabinets.

After closing the gap, multiple layers of crown molding were added. I watched in amazement while Sean did this part. The guy is seriously talented y’all! The breakfast bar wrapped in sheetrock also received several pieces of decorative molding around the edges and a smooth center. Our goal was for this area to be durable and easily wipeable since shoes frequently touch it.

After a little research, we ultimately decided that this project was worth investing in this Graco paint sprayer. We chose a Behr cabinet paint highly recommended by a Home Depot associate. The cabinet doors and boxes received a coat of primer and two coats of Benjamin Moore Simply White. Unfortunately, we did have a few drips. We allowed them to dry and sanded those areas prior to applying additional coats. We were careful to allow plenty of time between coats for the paint to fully dry. I won’t lie y’all, there were moments during this project where I thought Sean and I were going to just sit down and cry together. We were seriously wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. We closed off the entire kitchen to minimize the amount of paint that would circulate through our AC vents and to prevent any overspray from escaping. We giggled together after taping off everything because it seriously felt like we were in a scene from Dexter.

We were positive that the existing back splash would not be staying so we went ahead and just painted right over it.

I had no idea that it would be tricky to find new cabinet hardware and was pretty upset when the pulls I had picked out from Restoration Hardware did not fit the existing holes in our cabinet drawers and doors. I had never considered that the previous homeowner may have chosen hardware with rare sizing. I was practically jumping for joy in Ikea when I spotted these chrome pulls and looked down at the package to see that they were the exact sizing for our cabinets! Sean also purchased several wooden finials from Home Depot, cut them to height and added them as cabinet feet. Shortly after we painted our cabinets, we had the flooring replaced throughout our first floor. Wood look tile was installed throughout and the existing backsplash was replaced with white subway tile.

How are our cabinets holding up 3 years later?

It’s hard to believe that it has been about 3 years since we completed this project. Our cabinets are not perfect but they’ve really held up! There are a few areas that have small chips in the paint. 99% of these happened in the weeks following painting due to fingernails while opening drawers before the paint had cured. Honestly, it’s not noticeable and doesn’t bother us at all. A lot of people question if white cabinets are a good idea because white shows dirt. I’m a messy cook and have little boys running around here. I wipe our cabinets frequently with a microfiber cloth and my favorite all purpose cleaner. The spots come off without any effort and I personally don’t find it difficult to keep them clean.