Here’s how we painted our dated oak kitchen cabinets, with plenty of before and after photos. Talk about the difference some paint makes! It’s a big job, but it pays off! Our realtor saw our kitchen before, and after we’d painted the cabinets, she suggested increasing what we planned to ask for the house by $30,000 – and it sold in one week.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane. These are the listing photos for our Arizona house.
Before:
Here’s what it looked like after we moved in – apparently I didn’t take the time to clean up the clutter when I took this photo – that fridge and those counter tops! But we did paint the room gray, instead of the brown it was before.
For a couple years, we didn’t touch the kitchen other than painting the walls. Eventually, we took down the upper cabinets and replaced them with open shelves (here’s how to make these copper open shelves). It’s one of my favorite house projects ever – it made such a difference to the feel of the room, and I still love the copper end brackets and coffee mug racks!
But the final project for my dream kitchen kept being pushed further down the to-do list: painting those very 80’s oak kitchen cabinets. I read tutorials, watched DIY videos, and pinned all the things, but the thought of tackling it intimidated us.
After
What a transformation!
Those last three photos were taken for our listing. As you can see, we kept the same hardware on the cabinets, but with the white, it suddenly looks modern and chic. The white kitchen is full of light, and really pops against the wood floor. Plus, the white dishwasher, oven, and refrigerator blend in now, so it feels cohesive and larger.
As much as we’d improved in the house over the last four years, we’d neglected the two areas of the home that are the most expensive to update, and also the most desirable – the kitchen, and the bathrooms. The bathroom in the master bedroom REALLY needed upgrading, but beyond our practically free vanity makeover, we didn’t have the time or funds to invest it in. Upgrading the kitchen was our best chance of getting the most we possibly could out of our house sale.
And I figured, I had to take everything out of the cabinets anyway – so why not pack as we went?
I decided to go with the Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations painting kit since this was our first time taking on a job like this and it seemed like the safest bet to get a great quality finish. And, by this point we only had about one week to get the house ready for listing!
You Will Need:
- Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations – we used two kits, because we ran out of the white paint. Apparently, it’s not sold alone. The kit comes with the deglosser, the white, and the clear top coat. The great thing about this kit is that it doesn’t require sanding!
- Painters tape
- Drop cloths
- Wood glue if needed to make repairs or fill holes
- Protective googles
- Rubber gloves
- Paint brushes and small foam rollers
- Disinfectant wipes
Step 1: Prepping the Oak Cabinets
With a week to go before listing our house, even Sirius looks a little concerned! I created a spreadsheet with a column for each day, and listed the tasks we had to accomplish each day to get ready for the listing. I had to incorporate drying time into the schedule, since between each coat, we had to wait between 12-24 hours. With just me working on it, I never would have finished on time, but thankfully I had my sister-in-law’s help!
One important tip I learned from my research is to use disinfectant cleaning wipes to clean your cabinets to make quick work of dirt and grime.
Then, set up a staging area for your cabinet doors and drawers. This could be in your garage or outside, but since it was over 115 degrees outside, inside felt more appealing.
Remove your cabinet doors and drawers, and wipe them all down. Wipe down the cabinet frames as well.
Put on your googles and gloves, and get to de-glossing. Brian used the scrub pad that’s included in the kit to practically sand the cabinets – I didn’t scrub them quite that hard. The idea is to just get them really, really clean. The chemicals in the deglosser will remove the finish.
Step 2: Painting the Oak Cabinets
Yes, pregnant women can paint kitchen cabinets – we’ll just be really, really sore afterwards!
Tape off any counter edges or drawer edges you need to protect.
Mix up the white paint that comes in the kit, and get busy with the roller and a paintbrush. A small foam roller works well for getting a smooth finish, and the paintbrush will help you with the corners and edges.
We were surprised by how thin one coat of the white dried. We had to go over everything twice, and then some things, even more times before we had a thick enough coat. That’s why we had to buy a second kit, just for the white paint.
Sidenote: If I had to do it again, with more time to test things, I might try using chalk paint instead. It may be more expensive, but just like this kit, there’s no need for sanding. Sanding seems like the most time consuming and messy part of the job. I’m curious if chalk paint has better coverage. If so, the extra cost might be worth the time saved, because multiple coats takes a looooong time! Let me know if you have any experience with this!
The boards and nails you see in the photo above are our DIY drying stands. Put nails into scrap wood to use as stands under your drawers to allow the other side to fully cure. It cuts down on your drying time and chances of messing up the paint!
Step 3: Top Coat and Reassemble Cabinets
Once the final coat of white paint has dried, finish with the clear topcoat. This stuff is tricky to work with – it’s hard to see where you’ve already painted, and you’re not supposed to go over it again, because you could mess up the finish. But, at least this step goes quickly!
After 24 hours, you can reassemble your cabinets, as long as you keep the doors and drawers open for another 24 hours to cure. Living in a house with a toddler, that wasn’t happening, so we waited the full 48 hours before putting them back together.
