Painting the Cabinets

Dec. 11-19

The last step of our kitchen renovation was to recolor the cabinets. We chose to have them painted (vs stained) since the process was so much quicker, and because I wanted such a dark color, the grain of the wood that staining would typically preserve wouldn't be noticeable anyway. The price difference was about the same. The original color of our cabinets might have been maple, but 14 years later...that maple was orange color. And that orange color really brought out the orange tones in our floor (and probably visa versa) so our kitchen had a lovely (that was sarcastic) orange hue. Yuck. Besides, maple cabinets are outdated too--not that I care that much about what's on trend, but yeesh nobody wants to live in an orange kitchen. I would think that even if we wanted to up and move, we'd might have had to redo the kitchen anyway, it was that bad. As for color, I didn't want to choose something super trendy (like gray and steel blue are at the moment) because I know really in-style décor can be really out-style within as early as 5 years--I wanted a style that would be long-lasting and more traditional. I chose a dark brown because I think it looks classy and gives a nice contrast to the white countertops and backsplash we chose. IT took me a bit to pick out the color I wanted. I looked through soooo many shades of brown. I finally made my choice by taking all the paint samples out in the sun and comparing them to the brown I wanted. 

Anyway, we finally got around to calling the painter guy (Ryan) to come and do the job. He said he'd knock off $500 if we took off the knobs, doors, and drawers ourselves and label them as well. Working together, it didn't take Erik and I long to take everything off and label it...putting everything back together was a different story! Ryan was easy and great to work with, but I didn't like the guys he brought to help him. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if they are ex-cons. And I'm pretty sure one of them was high. It took Ryan and his team of losers about 4 days to do everything. Ryan was great to work with and I liked that he came back the following Monday to get the details fixed and painted as best he could. He even ordered us paint that matches our current wall color, I guess we didn't have any. Erik ordered knobs and drawer pulls that matched the appliances off of Amazon. The old ones were nice but unfortunately completely the wrong color. I started working Friday afternoon getting some of the cabinet faces on and screwing in the knobs and drawer pulls. What a pain. The next morning (Saturday) was my piano recital, and most of the morning we worked hard trying to get all the drawer faces and cabinet doors and all the knobs/drawer pulls on before the recital started. I love the way my new kitchen looks! So much better than that orange. The only thing I don't like is the finish shows grime and scratches easier than the old cabinets...but I'll take that over orange any day.  

Some of my  kitchen inspiration pictures that I screenshotted from off the internet.

Erik drew a map of the cabinets, while I marked the number in an inconspicuous spot on the door/drawer face and covered it with masking tape so the number wouldn't get painted over. Ian was obsessed with this map and taped it to one of his own and carried it all over the house, silly boy.

The kitchen looked so...messy and exposed for awhile there. Like looking at someone's chest cut open but not as gross.

I tried to recruit my mom into helping me pick out a color, but its no good because my phone camera doesn't and can't show the true colors. Only the sun can.

Ryan and his jail-bird team worked out of our garage.

A lot of work was put into painting inside...most of it seemed to consist of papering off the open spaces so all of our junk didn't get painted along with the cabinets, and after all that work, we ended up with a few drops on the stove front that I have yet to get off.

Don't touch the paint before it sets! 

Putting it back together!

I insisted that the baseboard of the island be painted too. Erik wasn't too much into that idea, but Ryan said he'd do it at no extra charge. I figured it couldn't look worse than what was already there, and if we hated it we could always have it painted again. Turns out that I like having the baseboard painted, it really brings the entire kitchen together. I don't care if no one else gets their island baseboard painted along with their cabinets (Erik's argument against, lol)!

 

Our new kitchen in all it's glory. Erik expressed concerns that going a dark brown would make the kitchen too dark, but it didn't. As a matter of fact, the dark contrasted against the light really brought out the white in the countertops and backsplash, making a nice contrast and balance. I was also considering having the walls behind the cabinets repainted because I wasn't sure if it would clash or be too dark, but luckily it looks nice so I chose not to have the wall repainted. I also really hated our orange floor, but having brown cabinets downplays the orange and brings out the brown. I still hate the floor, but not as much. It will be hard work convincing Erik to have the floors replaced, but for now I'm okay with the floors. When we had our orange cabinets, the oranges played off each other and gosh it just looked so orange and awful. Just for the record...orange is my LEAST favorite color of them all (sorry Erik). And to have my kitchen looking orange--not pleasant for me. Now I love my kitchen!

A before/after pic. Good riddance to orange cabinets!