Why I'm Painting Our Kitchen Cabinets

Well hello! We spent most of last week in one of our favorite places on Earth -- Disney World. :) It was SO much fun and I was so, so sad to leave. We always cram all four parks into a relatively short trip and we've decided we're getting too old for that. Next time we're spending another day so we can actually relax on our vacation -- something we're not really familiar with. ;) 

By the way, if you have a chance to go during the fall season and attend the Halloween party festivities at WDW I highly recommend it. So fun and the ability to walk right on to rides was worth the price of the tickets. We've always wanted to go to the Christmas party but they don't do it the week we usually go near Thanksgiving. Now I'm dying to go!

So anyway, I'm so close to done with the kitchen I can taste it. I'm not gonna lie -- I'm exhausted. :) I am so excited to see it finished I can barely stand it! I cannot wait to get it done and focus on the holidays (and decorate it for the holidays!). 

The next and biggest step in the reno is the painting of the cabinets. My friend Jenny from Evolution of Style is coming today to help me get started! She quit her corporate job and now does cabinet painting along with her blog and I can't wait to learn from her. I will be sure to sure to share all the details!

I know some people cringe when anyone talks about painting cabinets, especially nice ones like ours. I get it. I don't get the extreme responses I see on blogs at times. I'm a wood lover -- it hurts my heart a little bit when I see a beautiful old wood piece painted. But if it's what the owner wants, I say all the power to them!

We are painting ours for a few reasons. A biggie is that they are worn -- we've lived here almost 12 years now (I can't even believe that!) and they are showing their age. It's hard to see in wide shot photos but here's a close up: 

Every single cabinet around the sink is worn. The problem is if you touch where it's happening it flakes off even more: 

When I was prepping the cabinets last night I found even more wear on the sides and bottoms that I didn't even see at first. Fixing this isn't fun. I mean, you can fix it. But do you want to? I doubt it. ;) The work to strip these down and/or try to match the stain and finish isn't something I want to tackle. Those stain pens and markers don't do much to help these.

The thing is -- I don't like the finish anymore. I like it in general, but not for our kitchen. I picked these out all those years ago and deciding what you want for your entire house for the next 20+ years within a week is no joke. But back then the wood was our style -- dark and dramatic was what I loved. Light and bright is what I love now.

Another reason for the change? I have known for years now that I wanted to build our cabinets up to the ceiling:

Again, matching the stain would be difficult at best. I'd also have to use nicer wood than I did for the build and I would have easily tripled my cost on that project.

While we were out of town I had help priming those cabinets and I'm SO excited to see it start to transform!:

This cat. I have baskets that are usually up there and he was thrilled they were gone while everything dried.

But the biggest reason I'm painting our cabinets?

Because I want to. ;)

I have always admired white kitchens. They are timeless and classic and you can change them up so easily with accessories and fabrics. My plan right now is not to go all white though -- I'm going darker on bottom and lighter on top.

I think my friend Layla's kitchen years ago was the first time I fell in love with the two-toned look:

As always, that girl was ahead of the design curve. :)

I want a little more contrast though. I love the dark gray (Peppercorn by Sherwin Williams) we have on the island (I've used it all over our house), so I'm going with that on the lowers:

As with everything along the way, I'm going to wait to see how I like the white primed lowers first, but I'm pretty sure I'll go dark. 

The uppers will be all white. I just love that look! Here's one of my favorite two-toned pics: 

I may have mentioned one or 857 times that I'm a huge fan of contrast. Oh. my. goodness. I love it! 

This is another favorite: 

source

Gah. Be still my heart. I've learned what I see in photos doesn't always turn into love in my own home, so we'll see what color those base cabinets become!

There you go -- the many reasons I'm painting our cabinets. The most important one being that I want to -- and you should do the same. It's your home, make it what you want! 

If you have tutorials on painting cabinets, please feel free to leave a link in the comments. I'll share the detailed process with you very soon! 

Update: Here's my post on the sprayer I used and the full tutorial on how to paint your cabinets!