One of our first projects as new homeowners was to give our kitchen a re-facing. When we first toured the house we loved everything, but we just weren't too keen on the faux antique finish on the cabinets. In my opinion it made them look dirty, like someone had splashed brown liquid all over the cabinets while cooking.
I couldn't find any pictures of our actual cabinets beforehand, but I believe this picture I found on google is pretty close. The point is I just didn't like it. Others may love this look and try to replicate it on their cabinets, but it was just not for us. We figured there was no time like the present to get this taken care of before we took the time to unpack anything in the kitchen. After coming to that decision it was time for us to start the work. We enlisted the help of one of my sisters and a friend of ours to help us remove cabinet doors and sand EVERYTHING.
I let my fiancé do the majority of the power sanding since he had prior experience using this type of equipment. I however did take a few spins on the Black & Decker Mouse Sander myself. It was surprisingly easy to use and made quick work of the job of sanding the cabinet walls and faces. After many days of coming home from work and sanding until bed we finally finished that part of the project.
Next, we moved on to moving all large appliances out of the room, taping off the area, and putting rosin paper down to protect our granite counter tops and floors.
After all the prep work the only thing left to do now was to prime, choose our paint colors, and get started painting. Painting is a LOT of work! It is definitely no easy task and not one to be rushed.
In the end it turned out BEAUTIFUL! Sadly, I have to admit that my fiancé and I didn't do any of the actual painting of the kitchen ourselves. After choosing our colors and priming everything we were realizing all the mini-issues you come in contact with while repainting cabinets. Luckily for us our situation allowed us to have the opportunity to hire someone my fiancé's family had previously worked with to paint everything for us so that we could have the professional look we were going for. And since we were having someone come in to do the cabinets we figured we'd have them do the walls as well.
The final look was more beautiful than I could have imagined. I felt like the kitchen now looked pristine and cheerful, rather than dreary and dirty. It was definitely worth the time, effort, and money it took to get everything done.
<3 Kelly Jean
