Winter Boredom means DIY projects. Transformation from Oak Cabinets to White cabinets!
I don't know about you, but when I have a long weekend... aka 3 days off of work... I like to GO. Go travel, go do something fun, go visit people... just go. And when there's high's in the ZERO's forecasted, well, my get up and go gets frozen in place. And then I get bored after about 6 hours of nothing going on. And then I go on Pinterest. And then I go to the home improvement stores... unsupervised. I have a big 'want' list for my house - cupboards, flooring, vanity changes.... but I would much rather spend money on riding, traveling, and having experiences that spend money on my house on something not NECESSARY. So when my neighbor showed me his updated kitchen over the summer, where he ripped out all of the ugly oak in the place and put in custom white cabinets.. I had big dreams and ideas. Until he told me that it cost over $20k. I thought that dream was completely dashed... until!!!! This one day I was wondering around and found a magical transformation kit!!!
While I knew that resurfacing the cabinets was going to be a BIG job... I was motivated to do it. And do it right. For the first 26 hours, that motivation was in full effect. The remaining 20 hours.... well, not so much. But I was determined to put my kitchen back together ASAP. So while the project took a total of well over 42 hours of physical labor and lots of fumes, it was TOTALLY WORTH IT!!
A large area to lay the cabinets and paint them. Had I had more space to use for the job, I would have had it done much quicker. But I was limited in where I could put the cabinets to paint them, so had to do the job in chunks. Which meant prepping, painting, then waiting for them to dry before I could move on to the next cabinets. Where if I could have laid out alllll the cabinets at once, it would have been a huge time saver. I only had 2 saw horses and they take a lot of space. So I improvised. I used shelving boards and put three sets of 4 screws in - screwing them in just enough to hold the weight of the cabinet. This offered me the ability to paint the edges and have clearance for drying. I put masking tape over the screw heads when I was doing the final coats to make sure they didn't get scuffed up. I could fit three cabinet doors on each 'shelf board'.
One tip: I put the topcoat on the first couple of cabinets. And they turned YELLOW. Like, really yellow. I re-painted.. and yellow again. Then I went online and learned that if you paint oak cabinets white, ANY top coat you use will turn them yellow. If not immediately, shortly after... so there is no topcoat on the upper cabinets. Here is to hoping they last a LONG time!!!!!
Since I finished the project at 3:30am... I didn't realize JUST how ugly the countertops were until daylight came the next day. Guess that is the next project!! Oh, and that awful range hood..... #DIY
While I knew that resurfacing the cabinets was going to be a BIG job... I was motivated to do it. And do it right. For the first 26 hours, that motivation was in full effect. The remaining 20 hours.... well, not so much. But I was determined to put my kitchen back together ASAP. So while the project took a total of well over 42 hours of physical labor and lots of fumes, it was TOTALLY WORTH IT!!
Rustoleum is the magical transformation kit I used - roughly $120 for all the supplies (and more) needed to do a thorough job on cleaning the 1991 era cabinets. I'd highly recommend the following supplies if you are going to tackle the job yourself:
- Recruit help!!! It is a BIG job for one person
- Make sure you can ventilate the area... aka... not recommended to do when the high temperature is FOUR degrees.
- Dust mask - there was a LOT of sanding and fumes in the air
- Goggles/safety glasses - merely to keep the dust out of the eyes. It hurts after awhile.
- Get stripping sand blocks. Makes life a LOT easier. I did the bottom cabinets first using sand paper, a sander, and sanding blocks. It took a lot of arm work to get the shine off. The top cabinets, I invested a whopping $6 for a stripping sand block - SO much easier!!! Huge time and arm saver, for sure.
A large area to lay the cabinets and paint them. Had I had more space to use for the job, I would have had it done much quicker. But I was limited in where I could put the cabinets to paint them, so had to do the job in chunks. Which meant prepping, painting, then waiting for them to dry before I could move on to the next cabinets. Where if I could have laid out alllll the cabinets at once, it would have been a huge time saver. I only had 2 saw horses and they take a lot of space. So I improvised. I used shelving boards and put three sets of 4 screws in - screwing them in just enough to hold the weight of the cabinet. This offered me the ability to paint the edges and have clearance for drying. I put masking tape over the screw heads when I was doing the final coats to make sure they didn't get scuffed up. I could fit three cabinet doors on each 'shelf board'.
One tip: I put the topcoat on the first couple of cabinets. And they turned YELLOW. Like, really yellow. I re-painted.. and yellow again. Then I went online and learned that if you paint oak cabinets white, ANY top coat you use will turn them yellow. If not immediately, shortly after... so there is no topcoat on the upper cabinets. Here is to hoping they last a LONG time!!!!!
Since I finished the project at 3:30am... I didn't realize JUST how ugly the countertops were until daylight came the next day. Guess that is the next project!! Oh, and that awful range hood..... #DIY
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