Ugly kitchen help
I need help/ideas with my 1960's kitchen. Cabinets and doors are custom made and in very good condition structurally, but the color and finish of the doors quite ugly. The color is brownish/yellowish and the handles are IN THE MIDDLE of the door (who puts handles in the middle of the door?) so if I to remove those hideous handles there will be 1/8 inches hole in the middle. We recently put down Brazilian Cherry hardwood floor throughout kitchen and dining room, dinning table is also Cherry finish (you guessed it – Cherry is my favorite finish). We also will add Blue Pearl granite top in the future. Unfortunately replacing those cabinets are out of the question. We are do-it-yourselfers, so ANY help/ideas will be greatly appreciated.
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http://www.diyadvice.com/diy/carpentry/ideas/wood-panel-to-glass/
1.0 Change all the doors and drawer fronts only, same color like the frame, but door style can be different, absolutely the handles position will change not middle.
2.0 Sanding and repaint the existing frames, doors and drawer fronts to solid color (white), you don't need to worry the handle holes because they can fill them if solid color (not showing wood grain).
* White color cabinets can match your brand new emerald blue granite, just like above pros picture.
It will be recommended for durability that you use an oil-based paint. We used a hybrid that allowed for easier cleanup by Benjamin Moore called Advance. We chose a creamy white and used a mocha glaze on the molding details. Amazing!
To keep an updated look, I did not do a counter material backsplash but used only glass/stone tiles for a cabinet to counter backsplash. Made all the difference on the world IMO.
By sanding/chemically stripping down your cabinets, you give yoursel a brand new surface to work with. This means you will have the CHOICE of finishes at your finger tips! You will not be "stuck" with Oil/solvent based products (they stink, cause headaches - some cause cancer, and can take ages to dry). Once you have stripped your cabinets down to the original wood colour, you MIGHT JUST LIKE the colour underneath. It may be as simple as adding a beautiful "tinted" polyurethane to the cabinets and you are halfway there! Remember: oil based/modified products will DARKEN over time! Water based finishes will remain clear and never darken. There are some amazing products that work like a stain (add color AND shine to wood) without darkening or "ambering" over time like the old stains used to do!
If you don't like the wood colour, then go ahead with the original idea of painting the kitchen cabs a modern color. Like everyone here, be prepared to pay a price for the high end products - they are well worth the investment. Look at the stain that is there: it was probably pricy at the time...and yet 30 years later the wood and the finish look amazing.
About paint--the Benjamin Moore Advance is durable like an oil based paint but is a water based paint. It was pricey but I didn't want to deal with oils for all the reasons mentioned above plus the pain to clean up. We planned on doing our cabinets to last a long time.
Boy was I stunned at the time it took to do it right when I would watch a show on HGTV and painting cabinets was done in 24-36 hours seemingly. LOL.
But, what they have and don't show and what we had was the large number of people taking part in the project. All told, we had five people each day as well as a large basement with room to create a spray area and drying zones. Like them, we also are veterans of large painting projects with equipment and experience.
I wish the shows were more realistic about the time that it takes average people to do the DIY projects shown. There's a ton of prep work and lots of linear feet of brush work in painting an average kitchen. If we painting walls not cabinets, there lots of work putting up plastic to cover surfaces and putting out dropcloths. We'll usually have at least two, but often three people working. Even if you only see one person with a paint brush or roller, there's somebody in the background getting paint ready, prepping surfaces, cleaning brushes etc.
It's daunting and discouraging to tackle a major project like painting cabinets by yourself. It's more enjoyable to work with others and it's nice to have someone else around when you need a hand moving something. I recommend recruiting friends and/or family members to help, even if you don't want them toapply paint, it's nice to have the help getting ready.
We have sanded down all of the cabinet fronts and have put 2 coats of primer on them. My husband and I are impatiently waiting for the primer to dry to begin painting. I will say that the primed cabinet fronts have already brightened and modernized the kitchen. Can't wait to actually see it completed.
Colors chosen: Sherwin- Williams- alabaster (cream) for top cabinets
Sherwin- Williams- urbane bronze (dark brown) for bottom cabinets or just the island and other bottom cabinets alabaster- we haven't decided yet...
Sherwin- Williams- silvermist (blue-gray) for the walls
Good luck... It's a great winter project!
New door knobs. The existing knobs holes can be filled either with wood plugs or epoxy filler and sanded . Than repaint with quality paint ( oil an enamel ) and make and install tile back splash between base and upper cabinets. Relatively small investment and should make difference
Good luck .
http://www.caronind.com/en/style.php
Backsplash baby.......................................Love your comment. Sounds like the name you would give to a child who is learning to swim.
Lastly I just wonder how much all this helped the original poster because she really didnt say much.
Several people have discussed spraying cabinets. In my post, I commented about having a large number of people involved in the spraying. I am capable of running the sprayer and did some of the spraying for the initial wall painting but I did not spray the cabinets. My business partner and I have several people who work for us on a casual basis and one of them is a great spray guy. The sprayer's job is simply to apply paint, and someone else is there to catch the drips and point out any missed spots. We don't sand much between coats, just enough to knock off any surface irregularities.
The issues with spraying are more the mechanics of spraying - learning how to prime the sprayer, how to clean the sprayer, how to manage the hose, which tip to use etc. Also, not every paint is suitable for spraying. we used a paint which is very thin but dries quickly to a hard finish. Cheap paint sprayed doesn't look any better than cheap paint brushed or rolled.
The biggest trick to painting - spraying, brushing or rolling - is a minimum of two thin coats, don't try to cover in one coat. Some of our cabinets doors covered in two coats, others got three coats and we were repainting cabinets that were already white. If you're going over dark cabinets, you might even end up with four coats.
Painting well is a physical art of movement. The people who tend to find painting easy are those who also find playing racquet ball or golf or tennis easy. Some people just have a natural grace and innate knowledge of where their body is at all times. Those attributes make it much easier to evenly spray paint and paint straight lines...to them, it's just moving their arm while holding something, to the rest of us, it is a much more involved process. I'm in the klutz camp myself. I can get good results painting but I paint more slowly than the naturals. I'm never going to be one of those people who can paint a room in an hour or two and have it all look good. Someone who is mechanically inclined and naturally athletic will probably find spraying paint to be as easy as it looks and that has nothing to do with age or gender. No woman needs a husband to do this as there's nothing about being male that gives a natural advantage to something like this.
For a large job, we have a self contained sprayer, but for smaller jobs we use a small handheld gun that you fill a reservoir with paint and hook up to an air compressor. If you already have the air equipment, you can get a usable gun for $50 or so. It's more expensive if you need to buy the compressor and hose, but if you intend to do a lot of projects, a compressor is a good investment. Just be careful, buying tools is an expensive habit!
Or check this site out....someone posted it recently:
http://www.barkerdoor.com/default.asp
Estimate for new wood, not MDF cabinets $6200, which we do not have. Flooring we purchased at Menards what was very affordable, and counter top we will buy a slab for about $1100 and cut to the size. Believe me if we could afford new wood cabinets it would be installed already.