Long Overdue or The Consequences of Watching Home Improvement Shows During a Pandemic

Have you visited your local home improvement store lately? Ours is swarming with people (and I do not think it is just because we are currently in Snowbird Season). I guess we are not the only ones looking to change things up a bit around the old homestead. This pandemic has every homebound person critically eyeballing their walls, floors, bathrooms, kitchens, gardens...you name it and binge watching shows on HGTV is just adding fuel to the fire.

The Colonel was eyeballing our kitchen one day. "I think we should paint the kitchen cabinets a different color. They have been the same color for almost 15 years now. Be thinking what color you would like to paint them".

To be honest, I was kind of dragging my heels about starting a "paint the kitchen cabinets campaign". I had been doing research on line about what it entailed. First the cleaning of the cabinets, then the removal of doors, actual painting, re-attachment of said doors, changing the hardware out...you get the idea. It was the cleaning of the cabinets I was dreading most.

I decided to go with chalk paint on my cabinets. I have used it on many other projects and it is a very forgiving paint. I visited the Dixie Belle Paint website and was pleased to see that I did not have to wax or seal my cabinets if I chose not to (if I get splatters or finger marks on them, I still have plenty of paint left for touch ups). That would be a step I would not have to take. Yay! The Dixie Belle company had a product for cleaning the cabinets. It was a degreaser and de-duster all-in-one. I just mixed the powder in some hot water, wiped down my cabinets and then rinsed them with warm water. It worked as advertised. As I cleaned cabinets, The Colonel dusted and cleaned the tops of the uppers (now we know why people take their cabinets all the way to the ceiling). 

I wanted to have a two-toned kitchen this time around. I chose to paint the upper cabinets white and the lower cabinets a Jadeite green color (surprise, surprise). Once I had the paint colors for the cabinets, I looked for new knobs. I wanted the old timey, glass knobs. I bought white ones for the upper cabinets and Jadeite colored ones for the lower cabinets. 

I wanted to change the wall color of the kitchen too. I was a light green color and I wanted to paint it white. I tried to find a white that would be close to the white of the subway tile backsplash and ended up with something called Fresh Popcorn. There are sooooo many shades of white out there, picking one is harder than one would guess. 

This is what our kitchen looked like for nearly 15 years.

After all of the cabinets were cleaned, The Colonel and I began painting the walls first. 

When the walls were painted and dry, we rehung everything.

Our ceilings are 9'4" high and the white paint made them appear so much higher. I felt like I was in the clouds. I was eager to see what the white cabinets would look like against the walls. Time to tackle the cabinets.

We wanted to see how the white uppers and Jadeite lowers would look together, so we painted the first two cabinets, one in each color.

I loved the look already! The white uppers would make the kitchen brighter and more spacious looking and the green lowers would make the granite pop.

We decided to first paint the cabinets that were on the wall opposite the sink. The Colonel removed the doors and we began painting. We had doors drying in the kitchen and hallway.

The white paint took three coats and the green only two. Once everything was painted and dry, The Colonel rehung the doors (not as easy as removing them). Then The Colonel put the new glass knobs on the cabinets. He had to cut down each screw that came with the knobs (there were 36 of them). We were very happy with the new look of the cabinets.

Now it was time to tackle the other side of the kitchen. This time we opted not to remove the doors. This did not hamper the painting job much and we did not have to maneuver around drying door (we would have to move the refrigerator around a bit). In keeping with the old timey feel of the kitchen redo, The Colonel added some shelves to the upper cabinets flanking the window.

I concentrated on the lower cabinets and The Colonel on the upper cabinets. 

It took us about two weeks to complete the kitchen make-over. We are very pleased with the way it turned out. I was correct in my assumption that the white upper cabinets would make the kitchen brighter and look larger and the green lowers would make the brown granite really pop. I love the new look of our kitchen but I am also happy that all of the work is now behind us.