When we first saw the house, one of the things that stood out to me was the kitchen.  It was really open, had lots and lots of cabinets (they still aren’t all full!) and I loved that it overlooked the family room.  Because I spend a decent amount of time in the kitchen, I knew I wanted a layout where I could be cooking and still see what the little people were up to. I also knew that the space would be great for entertaining.

Here are some pictures of the kitchen when we first saw it.  It had some cabinets and a little desk area to the left of the fridge. Moving clockwise, there was a walkway to the laundry and mud room (here’s a recent post on what we did with that room). Keep moving and there was a nice sized pantry followed by more cabinets with the oven and microwave and a walkway to the butler’s pantry. Last was the part that overlooks the family room with more cabinets, the sink and dish washer. As I’ve already mentioned, before we moved in, we replaced all of the flooring on the first floor with hardwoords. The only other things we did in this room at first were clean out all the cabinets, reline them and move in our things. Here’s what the kitchen looked like when we moved in.Now, one thing I knew from day one was that I wanted to paint the cabinets white.  As I’ve said before, they were original to the house, solid oak and in great condition. They were actually really pretty, but I knew once we got the hardwood floors in it would be too much brown and just not my taste.  I also thought I might want to do something different with the countertops, but decided to just start with the cabinets and see what I thought when they were finished.  (In hindsight, that was a great decision, as they look great with the white cabinets and we didn’t have to replace perfectly good countertops!)

So I knew I wanted to get started, but was nervous about the time and energy it would take.  I found a blog that went over ever detail, step-by-step, and read it over every day for a few weeks. I gathered my supplies (there were A LOT!) and gave myself a pep talk to get started. (In case you’re interested, here is the site I used where you can easily print and downloaded the e-book).

First step…cabinet doors all came off and drawers came out. Because the cabinets were oak, they had a really heavy wood grain.  And I didn’t want that oak grain to show through. The guide above was perfect because it was done by a girl who’d redone cabinets just like mine. In particular, the recommended paint was fantastic. It’s an enamel paint that is really forgiving and you don’t see any streaks, lines, etc. I ordered it online and had it tinted to Benjamin Moore White Dove at Home Depot.

Now, if you’re thinking about trying this yourself, I will warn you. This project was very, very, VERY time consuming.  As in, I worked Monday to Friday about 1-2 hours a day (while the kids were in school and napping) and then for 8-12 hours every weekend.  For five weeks. A whopping total of 130 hours! (Yes, I kept track haha)

There were A LOT of steps to follow that went kind of like this:

1. Sand doors and drawers
2. Use putty to fill in the grain as best you can
3. Sand again
4. Fill AGAIN with putty
5. Sand AGAIN
6. Prime and sand
7. Prime and…you guessed it…sand again (Yes, we are up to 5 rounds of sanding already. I told you this was time consuming.)
8. Use a caulking gun to fill in all the gaps (when the cabinets go white, all the gaps and spaces really show)
9. Spray with the white paint (finally)
10. Light sand
11. Spray again

I seriously almost threw in the towel and called someone else to finish the job at five different points.

Here are some pictures of the process. I did doors in the garage and drawers on the back deck.Next, all the cabinet frames needed the same process (minus the grain fill-in).  I used a small foam roller here that worked really well.  The cabinet frames also need two coats of primer and two coats of paint.Just when I thought the hard work was done, it was time for the hinges. With 28 cabinets, and 2-3 hinges per cabinet, I had my work cut out for me. All the old hinges were external, and I wanted to convert them to internal hinges.  If you want to read about how I did that, here is a good source.

I also installed cabinet handles and drawer handles (they originally had none).  Lots of measuring and lots of time, but a fairly easy job!
FINALLY! It was time to put the cabinets back up!  Also, a big job.  Luckily, all the holes lined up almost perfectly to the previously drilled holes, so I could put them back up with the help of my hubby in just a few hours.A few thoughts after doing the kitchen:

1.  If you don’t care about filling in the oak grain, SKIP THAT STEP! It was crazy tedious, so if you’re painting cabinets as a “hold-off-to-a-kitchen-remodel” in the near future, just prime and paint. I was pretty certain we’d never be replacing cabinets, so I wanted to finish them in a way that looked professional and would last.
2. Do ALL the cabinets/drawers at once.  Although it will put a strain on your kitchen for a little while, it was so much easier to do allllll the priming, allllll the sanding, allllll the painting, etc. at once.  Doing it in sections might have been less daunting, but because the project required so many steps, it was nice to knock them out in their entirety, clean up, and move on to the next part.

After cleaning up my mess, I took a few weeks off and then added some more touches to finish it off. Check out part 2 of the kitchen for the rest…