Kitchen Construction, Part 8 - Coating Cabinets

Before

The final step in our kitchen renovation was revamping the cabinets. They were covered in the original 70's lacquer and were showing their age. It didn't help that the cabinets had no handles, so they've been touched by dirty hands for the past ~40 years.

Since the cabinets themselves were in relatively good shape, and we didn't want to spend a fortune, we decided to just paint them and add new hardware. It took quite a bit of doing, but they came out very nicely.

We started by labeling all the cabinets and drilling holes for the new hardware. We drilled them in place to make sure we didn't turn them around and accidentally drill the holes in the wrong corner.

Another utility onesie makes an appearance.

 We removed the doors and the old hinges next.

After that we washed all the cabinets to removed decades of grease then gave them a light sanding. I recruited my brother and parents to help over Christmas. Thanks, family!

After sanding we primed and applied two coats of "Creamy."

We debated whether or not to paint the interiors of the cabinets, but we decided it would look really bad if we didn't, so we bit the bullet, emptied the cabinets, and put a thick coat of primer on the inside. We bought a paint sprayer for the task and it worked quite well. It applied the paint faster than a roller would have and allowed us to do only one coat. It made a bit of a mess, but I think it was worth it.

 We loaded the cabinets back up and painted the frames.

Reinstalling the doors and the new hardware took a full day, but it came out beautifully. The photos are deliberately cropped to keep the suspense for the full kitchen reveal in the next post.

After

After

Here's that Before shot again.

Before

We also painted the shelf and linen cabinet in the hallway, which banished the last of the 70's lacquer from the house. Good riddance.