Painting Kitchen Cabinets

Here's the truth.  I wrote this post earlier this afternoon and then tonight we went to someone's house that we'd never been to before....and they have an amazing kitchen.  AMAZING.  Gorgeous.  A newer home with quality materials and beautiful craftmanship.  Wow, I was in a bit of shock. Coming home tonight the contrast kind of hit me.  I realize my kitchen is modest.  But it's a happy place for me where we share life together.  And so I will post because I'm documenting real life.  Here & now.  Ugly, old fridge and all.  

I thought I'd post, six months after the fact, that we painted our kitchen cabinets.  This happened back in August. It was labor intensive, so much that I stopped tracking our hours, but it was at least a week.  Dozens of hours, mostly spent in the garage.  It didn't seem like we had that many cabinets but once the doors and drawers were in the garage it seemed an enormous amount.  

I love the look of white cabinets and I'm happy with our finished project.  Our cabinets were in great shape to begin with.  I was inspired by Young House Love's blog and we mostly followed the process they outlined here.    

Here's the short version of the steps:
1. Took off all the cabinet doors and took out the drawers [numbered] and put in garage.  
2. Continued inside the house by sanding the cabinet frames/boxes.  
3. Removed all the hardware from the doors and drawer fronts.
4. Sanded the cabinets doors and drawer fronts [1st pass 60 grit and then 180 grit].
5. De-glossed everything.  
6. Primed [Zinsser].  Primed everything again.  [We used a paintbrush for the raised trim on the door fronts and then rolled the rest with a small foam roller.]
7. Applied 2 coats of paint.  [Behr's Popped Corn, semi-gloss]
8. Spray painted all the hinges.
9. Rehung the cabinet doors.  [Wasn't as easy as it sounds.]
10. Added new knobs and pulls.  

By this time, we were ready to be done and out of the garage but if I were to do it again, I think, I'd apply a 3rd coat of paint to the door fronts.  Six months in, they still look good and are wearing well but we have a few knicks from abuse like Addie driving her little, metal shopping cart into the doors. While I do tell her to stop, I'm ok with a bit of natural patina.  

"A welcoming home is where real life happens.  It's where personalities are nurtured, where growth is stimulated, where people feel free not only to be themselves but also to develop their best selves.  

That caring, nurturing quality- not the absence of noise or strife- is what makes a home a refuge."

~Emilie Barnes~ 

[I saw this quote on this blog]