Black Cabinets!

Posted by: Paulette

I've been really busy the past few days taking cabinet doors off and painting the cabinets. I have to say that this is a really long project that I will be happy to have finished. Especially since I can already see how beautiful the results are going to be. It's amazing to me how paint can transform blah to beautiful, and dingy and old to clean and new. 

Here's the before:

I love the paint treatment on the walls in my kitchen, but the cabinets really fade into the background. And since they are so light everything that gets on t hem stains them. I've banned Kool Aid from our house, but somehow there are other things that get on them. The cabinets above are relatively clean. The ones below are filthy! Hopefully not a testament to my poor house cleaning, but what 5 kids can do to destroy a house!

Remember when I said I had plans for all of that robin's egg blue paint I have left over from this project? Well, I bought some acrylic paint in blue and yellow and re-tinted it to a gorgeous teal. It matches the tile in my kitchen. When we first moved into this house, I hated that tile. All I could think of was that it looked Southwestern. Just not my style. And I've fought it for 8 years. When deciding to paint the cabinets I embraced the tile color and just went with it. I'm so glad I did! take a look at this little teaser.

These are the only cabinets without doors on them. I love how all of my dishes look against the teal background.

Here's another teaser. These are the cabinets above the refrigerator. I started by scrubbing everything down with a Scotch Brite cleaning pad. You know the kind that has the green scrubber. It was like sand paper! I also used a solution of 1 part vinegar to 1 part water, and a squirt of dish soap. If the cabinets were covered in grease, I also used baking soda to clean them off. Then I used a grey tinted primer, and 2 coats of Wal-mart brand Color Place latex paint in Dark Coalmine in semi-gloss. After they had dried, I distressed them with a sanding sponge and stained the areas with an antiquing glaze. I still have to put some poly on them, but they look great, don't they?

I'm not quite ready for the reveal. And the worst of the cabinets is yet to come. The ones under the sink. But, I couldn't wait to share.