Saturday, February 14, 2015

Big Paint Project

My big project over the winter was to chalk paint my kitchen cabinets.  My home was built in 1981 and the kitchen has the original oak cabinets and although they were still structurally sound and in excellent condition, they are dated.  So rather than invest in the high cost of replacement cabinetry, I decided to chalk paint them instead.  Where this seems like a rather big job, I had planned to complete this over my Christmas break.  I actually got all of the prep and painting completed during that 12 day period and was able to move at my own pace.  Of course. I also hung wall paper and repainted the walls and trim as well.  I am so pleased with the finished results and would highly recommend the chalk paint technique to anyone thinking of redoing their kitchen cabinets.

Original oak cabinets and a birch island. Aluminum twin sink.  Never understood the appeal of these twins sinks.  Always too small for me.  I replaced it with a big farm sink with lots of room to do dishes and big pots.

I chose Duck Egg blue as my color.  So loving the soft color and it made my kitchen look twice the size.  Because this is a kitchen I used a satin finish interior paint, cleaned and prepped the cabinets and then began the three coats of application that I wanted.   Once the final coat had cured (3 days) I then applied the wax and Kona stain mix.  Yup, I'm crazy about the finished results.



 Close up of the color and the pretty handles I added.


 Going to replace the appliances once my tax refund shows up.  These are also original to the house and I wanted to upgrade.  

 Even the old appliances look better.

 Close up of cabinet.

 I replaced the cafe curtain with a Victorian petticoat.  Yup, this was a "cutter" that I had purchased a few weeks back and had no real plans for it when I made the purchase.  I wanted to keep the Romantic Farmhouse look and remembered this petticoat.  Luckily, it belonged to a woman of great stature so I opened up one seam and it fit the large window beautifully.  

This was such a fun project to do and the painting cost was under $100.00 (and that included the cabinet hardware) to make this transformation.  I would recommend it to anyone.  Blessings to you and those you love, Sea Witch.

2 comments:

birdie said...

Dari how much chalk paint did it take? It is beautiful. I had my cabinets painted several years ago with an oil base paint, now they are yellowing, I would like to try chalk paint over them now. I love your cabinets nice job!

Sea Witch said...

Hello Birdie: You can contact me via seawitchenterprises@comcast.net for more details about the application process. It took less than a gallon of satin finish BEHR interior and I gave the cabinets three coats. I did that because a kitchen sees a lot of action. If you have an oil base paint now, you will have to scratch (sand) the surface in order for any paint to adhere. I bought a few of the sanding bricks and did that to mine and that was the ticket. No need to sand the surface bare, just scratch it up. Does't take long to do, it's just messy but so worth it.