If you follow me on
Instagram you already saw the reveal of our kitchen makeover. I wanted to write up a post to share my thoughts and experience incase anyone wants to give this a try.
We went with Rust-oleum Cabinet Transformation Cabinet Coating System that we picked up at Menards for around $70. We ended up needing 2 boxes. We bought the light kit and got it in Pure White.
The kit comes with everything pictured below. There are 4 steps but one of the steps is the glaze coat which we decided to leave out as we just wanted a crisp white finish.
Here's what we were working with as a before. We live in a log cabin so everything is wood inside. It was just too much wood and has just that one window so it was very dark in there.
We decided to work in sections, starting with the upper cabinets on the dining room side. We removed all the doors and hinges and laid them out on the counter with some paper down. A friend recommended some little triangles that hold your doors up so you can paint both sides, but we just used some push pins so when we flipped them over they would rest on the pins. Worked well actually.
The first step is the deglosser. It's essentially a cleaner. You just rub it all over following the instructions that came in the box. After the recommended drying time it's time to paint. The instructions say you'll do 2 coats but we did three just because I noticed once the second coat dried there was areas that didn't look covered completely.
After the paint is dried you can do the glaze coat if you want. It gives it a more antique look to me so that's why we decided to skip this step. I wanted bright crisp white. The final step is the protective top coat. When I first put this on it had a slight yellow tint to it but dried clear. I let everything dry for a whole day just to be safe and then we installed new knobs and hinges and hung the doors back up.
The process is pretty simple and fairly easy. It just requires a lot of time. Each coat has a 2-3 hour dry time. So we would paint for maybe 30 minutes then wait for it to dry. I'll be honest and admit that it took me a month to get all the upper cabinets painted. I waited 6 months to start the bottoms and that only took me a few days because the weather was nicer so I took everything outside and didn't have to do it 2 or 3 doors at a time like I did the uppers. I definitely recommend doing it all at once if you have the space instead of in sections like we did. Just seemed to go faster that way.
And now for the big reveal!
Isn't it AMAZING!! It makes it seem so much brighter in there. It's been a few months since we completed it and it's held up great.
For fun, let's do a side by side comparison.
Overall, I am very happy with how it turned out. But now we need new counter tops because they look really bad now. Let me know if you've ever tried this or have been thinking about giving it a try.
*this post is not sponsored by Rust-Oleum, I just wanted to share my experience*