Our Budget Kitchen Refresh

We’re in the middle of a Budget Kitchen Refresh!  I wanted to give you a peek!  It’s definitely a work in progress!

The Before!

 You might remember that about two years ago we swapped houses with our daughter and her family.  You can read about it here!

The first year we didn’t do very much, my mom’s health was failing and my focus was on her. (You can read about our journey here .)  We did make some changes, nothing crazy–mostly paint.   So far we have repainted the living room, our master, and the spare bedroom.  We gave the bathroom a face lift with some help from Cost Plus World Market– you can take a look here !  I also moved my craft room/office into what was my mom’s living room, you can see how that worked out here.

Warning:  whatever room I am working on is usually trashed.  And, as usual,  I forgot to take before photos until I had already removed the cabinet doors from the other side of the kitchen!  Lighting is a big issue in my kitchen.  The sun shines in the front of the house most of the day and the kitchen is in the back.  It’s difficult to get a decent photo.  Lighting is a definitely needs to be addressed.

The first manner of business in the kitchen refresh was repainting the cabinets.  My daughter and her husband had painted the cabinets a creamy color.  Then they had a kitchen fire !!   Believe it or not one of the dogs was trying to get into an empty pizza box and actually turned a burner on in the process knocking the box into the flame!  The family was out and they came home to a house full of smoke and flames and the dogs barking to get out.  Thankfully everyone–dogs included–was fine!

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Supplies:

• B.I.N. Shellac Based Primer
  My cabinets had areas where they were stained with soot from the fire.  If your cabinets are a dark paint or wood it’s recommended (by Fusion Mineral Paint)  that a Shellac Based Primer be used to “seal” the color so it doesn’t bleed through.
• Fusion Mineral Paint in Casement
  After much consideration I decided on Fusion Mineral Paint.  I was impressed with the reviews that other bloggers had given the product and had used it myself on small projects and furniture and loved the finish.
• Fusion Tough Coat /Clear
  This is optional.  It’s recommended for high traffic areas, like table tops and chairs and, after all the time and effort I put into the cabinets, I wanted the extra protection.
• Purdy Paint Brush
  My absolute favorite brush is their 2.5 inch glide (angled) brush.  I use it for everything from cutting in walls to painting projects.
• Painter’s Tape
  I was lazy and didn’t remove the hinges from the doors so I taped them off.  I also taped off any areas where the cabinets met the walls or back splash.
• Wet/Dry Sandpaper
  Just to give the paint something to grab usually 180 grit works fine.
• Sanding Block
• Deglosser
  
• Drop Cloths

Now, remember, my cabinets had “issues”.   For normal cabinets (those that haven’t been in a fire) all that is needed is a light sanding and a de-glosser (to remove cooking grease).  Then a coat of primer if the cabinets are a dark stain or paint (if you’re going to a lighter color).  Don’t skip the de-glossing or sanding, it’s absolutely necessary!

 Here is what I dealt with.

We removed the doors and hardware and I taped off the hinges.  Ok, to be honest, I only taped off the hinges on a few of the doors and then said the heck with that, I’d be careful.  Then I moved all the doors and drawers outside to sand them.

The paint didn’t “sand”, it kind of “rolled” and gummed up the electric sander-ugh!  That obviously wasn’t working so I tried wet sanding which actually worked well on the cabinet boxes inside and on the door backs, but did not work at all on the door fronts!  I chose remove the paint on the fronts of the doors because it was not sanding well at all.   My options were to either use a paint stripper or a heat gun.  I chose the heat gun for a number of reasons–available work space and mess mostly.  Plus the heat gun is definitely more fun than stripper!  There is something very relaxing about watching paint bubble and scraping it off!  Although after the first 10 doors the novelty was definitely wearing off.   Needless to say, what should have been a one or two day job of preparation at most (the lightly sanding and deglossing), turned into over two weeks by the time I finished stripping, and sanding!  Yup  two weeks!

Here is one section of boxes wet sanded and the base cabinets and side cabinet are primed!

   I have to say, wet sanding the cabinet boxes is the way to go–ZERO dust to deal with.  It is a little messy, but so much easier to clean than the dust that gets everywhere and into everything!

This is what my deck and house looked like for a few weeks!

Cabinets everywhere, first sanded, then primed, then two coats of paint, then two coats of top coat!  Yes, I did ALL the recommended steps–I was only doing this one time and I wanted it done right!

I’ll do a big reveal after I paint the walls and do a couple of extra little touches in a future post.  In the meantime I’m trying to figure out what to do with the back-splash?

I want to lighten up the back splash.  Plus I really, really don’t like it at all!   The cabinets are now (can’t wait to show you) a pretty and soft white called Casement but Fusion Mineral Paint.  The back splash is a cherry color.  I can’t remove it without doing a lot of damage–it was installed before the counter top and was glued and nailed so it would really be a project.  I’m looking for ideas that would lighten it up, or cover it up, or make it look like it never happened. I am considering a few different options.

For now, I am going to recuperate from a full month of kitchen cabinet work (did I mention this was a one-woman job–except for removing and rehanging the doors).  I’m beat!  I have a few more things to do before the reveal so stay tuned!

If you have any suggestions for what I could do with the back splash I would love to hear from you.  You can email me at [email protected]–No kidding, I could use some advice!

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The post “Our Budget Kitchen Refresh” was written by Karen Ploransky and is property of The Decorated Nest.

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