Painted Kitchen Cabinets

Last week, after what felt like an eternity, I finished painting my kitchen cabinets. I am so relieved to put this project behind me, especially considering how much more painting I still need to do in this room. Let's not talk about that right now though, I'm still in my happy place.

It looks like a subtle change on the screen, but I swear it's made a big difference in person. The entire room feels so much brighter. It matches the color scheme of my house now, instead of being a big off-white sore thumb of a room and a testimony to thinking paint colors through carefully and in context with the bigger picture of a house's design.

As a reminder, here's a photo of the north wall before we started monkeying with anything:

And here it is after we messed with cabinets and the painting was all done:

Some of the difference in color is lost due to different lighting and my poorish skills in photography, so here's a better illustration of the difference:

 See? Totally worth painting. The previous color ended up looking dingy and dim when surrounded by all the crisp white trim of the other rooms that my kitchen is now wide open to.

The halfway unpainted box is where our new over-the-range microwave will go and not match my bisque-colored oven.

 Instead of adding wine storage to the space where the microwave was previously, you can see that we created a sort of coffee nook. Because that space is between my range top and the weird cabinet-covered heating duct, I decided it was too warm for wine storage. Improvise, adapt, overcome. That's what I say... when I'm writing blog posts.

On the plus side, now I get to buy a cuter coffee maker. And then I get to slowly come to terms with having an appliance on display. Wish me luck...

I'll be back tomorrow with details about the paint and the process!

Update: Learn about the paint I used and read my tips for achieving the best finish!