Something fun

One of my favorite websites is doing a swap called Trade Secret Swap. The gist of it is you purchase/make items that make your life easier and/or more fun and swap them with someone else. I am excited to do it! Go check it out!

kitchen cabinet re do

All over blog land I have been seeing people paint their kitchen cabinets. I thought about it and chickened out about 10 times. Finally after figuring out that ours looked shabby and I couldn't hurt them much worse then they were, I decided to give it a try. I got the fortification I needed from reading this blog and this blog. Plus I googled "painted kitchen cabinets" and read a lot of tutorials.

Here is the before:


It's a really bad picture, but the only one I could find. I forgot to take an actual 'before'. You can't really tell by the poor picture, but the ugly brown stained cabinets do not look good with the counter tops, our white/stainless appliances or the wall color.

Here is the after:







A few things:

  • I used Benjamin Moore low lustre oil-based paint. It's much more expensive then latex. But I only had to lightly sand the cabinets before putting on one coat, with a few touch ups. No priming. It takes 6-8 hours to get tacky and 24 hrs to dry completely. I used a fan to speed the process up. I used a roller brush where I could and used dollar store brushes to get in the crevices. Each night I threw the one I had been using away and used a clean one the next time I painted. Oil based paint has to be cleaned up with paint thinner, not water- I learned that the hard way. I kept a rag doused in paint thinner near by to wipe up spills.
  • I left all the doors on and the drawers in place. The hinges are weird and I couldn't figure out how to undo them. So I just taped them off and painted around them. It's not perfect, but who's going to be looking at the hinges inside my cabinets?
  • I painted in stages, mostly at night after my kids were in bed. I started on the inside of the doors and the cabinet frame. Then let it dry the entire night with the fan blowing on it. By the next morning when we all woke it was mostly dry. I left the cabinets open and by the next night, it was dry so I could paint the outside of the doors.
  • It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be and the change is so wonderful I wish I had done it years ago!!!! If you're debating whether or not to paint yours...Go For It!!