The one with the... Kitchen Makeover (Part 3- Cabinet Transformation)

In Part 2 of the Kitchen Makeover we shared how Dave installed 4 new appliance and in Part 1, I mentioned the old trash compactor that we were getting rid of and replacing with a regular base cabinet. In case you missed it, here she is, in all her glory: 

During the appliance uninstall/purge, Dave removed it and pulled it out to the curb: 

That left us with an empty space!  In its place, we wanted a regular base cabinet with a door to house the Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer that was mentioned in Part 1 of the Kitchen Makeover.  To try to find a cabinet design and color that would best match our existing cabinets we took one of the cabinet doors to Home Depot with us.  We were able to find the same manufacturer and color as our existing cabinets, but unfortunately the manufacturer does not make a base cabinet with just one large door.  They only had base cabinets with a drawer on top and a door on the bottom.  As an alternative, we had to go with another manufacturer that had a slightly different cabinet door design and color but made base cabinets with just the single door:    

It took a good 3 weeks for Home Depot to get the one cabinet to us, but since we were busy working on all the other projects in the kitchen, we didn't mind too much.  In the picture below you can see the slight difference in color and shape between our existing cabinet doors and the new one (Left is the existing, right is new).  It's pretty similar but not an exact match, but least we were able to order the base cabinet in oak so the grains of the wood would be somewhat the same.

Seeing that the new base cabinet doesn't match the existing cabinets exactly, we decided to refinish all of the cabinets.  We had been talking about possibly painting the all the cabinets because we weren't super fond of the plain oak color--the grains on it make it look very busy!  Not to mention that our hardwood floors are also a very similar color oak, making the whole kitchen look like a big oak box:

I had read online about the fairly new Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformation kit that some other DIY home improvement bloggers used for their kitchens.  After reading many blog reviews (like here, here, and here) and watching the Rust-Oleum instructional video about 10 times, I was sold!  The kit comes with just about everything you need to transform your cabinets without having to bust out the sand paper!  And it's pennies compared to what it would cost to replace the cabinets.  


The kit comes in a small and large kitchen kits (100 sq ft and 200 sq ft, respectively).  When I used the Rust-Oleum online tool to measure which kit I needed it said the larger 200 sq ft kit.  However, Home Depot only carried the smaller 100 sq ft kit, so I ended up having to buy two of the smaller ones.  It also comes in a dark color kit and a light color kit.

   

The transformation consists of a 4 step process: 1) deglossing, 2) paint (bond coat), 3) optional decorative glaze (which I did not use), and 4) protective top coat (which I also didn't end up using because I did not like it).  Here's a picture of the contents of the kit:

Everything is pretty much labeled and the instructions were helpful (although I was annoyed by some conflicting instructions between the video, booklet, and what was printed on the actual cans).  The tall bottle on the left is the deglosser, which you use with the green scrubby pads on the bottom right.  Of course the sticks are for stirring, and the white rags in the bag are actually for the decorative glaze (in the small cans) that I didn't end up using.


As I mentioned the kit comes in a Light Color and a Dark Color version.  Between the two there are 70 colors to choose from:

We decided to go with the "Chocolate" color because it would contrast nicely with our oak-colored floors, the white corian countertops, and... another element that we're adding to the kitchen which we'll share in Part 4. :)   

As you can see in the picture above, there is not much difference between the "glazed" and the "unglazed" versions, which is why I decided to skip the glazing step.  This actually turned out to be a good thing because the glaze takes a lot of extra drying time! 


The first thing we had to do was to take off all the cabinet doors.  Here you can see how unorganized the contents of our cabinets are: 

The new Advantium and fridge make a cameo in this picture: 

The Rust-Oleum instructions suggest that you label the cabinet, cabinet doors and put the respective hardware in labeled baggies:  

In total we had 20 cabinet doors! Taking off the doors and all the hardware was a two person job-- Dave was happy to help me as long as he didn't have to pick up a paint brush. I set up my painting area in the basement on the long tables that Dave uses for his LANs and used leftover 2 by 4s and 2 by 6s from our bookcase project to prop up the doors for ease of painting. 

So now we're ready to start with the transformation process: 

Step 1 - Wipe down cabinets with mild soap and water and dry.  I used dish soap because it cuts the grease.  Repeat on the other side. 

Step 2 -  Using the deglosser and scrubbing pads from the kit, scrub down the cabinet doors (scrub with the grain).  Then wipe down with a wet cloth and then a dry one.  The instructions say to wait at least an hour before painting.  Repeat on the other side.     

Step 3 - Paint.  I ended up having to do two coats of paint plus another go around for touch ups.  Each coat of paint had to dry for 3 hours.  Multiply that by 3 coats on each side, plus about 20 minutes of painting in between... that's 20 hours!     

What's nice about the paint from the kit is that it's not as thick as regular latex paint-- see how you can still see the grains of the oak even after three coats of paint?   

Some cabinet doors were easier to paint than others... These two cabinets with glass doors were a pain!  I had to tape the glass on both sides:

Step 4 - Apply the protective coat.  After two coats of the protective coat (with 24 hour waiting time in between each coat), I was still not happy with it.  The protective coat was not so... protective.  The paint chipped off easily underneath and the glossiness looked inconsistent.  There were some spots that were more glossy than others and in certain lights you can totally see the patches.  I ended up using Minwax Polycrylic Protective Finish in the semi-gloss. Two coats of this stuff and we were good to go!  Repeat on the other side.   

While the cabinet doors were in between drying times, I started working on the cabinets themselves using the same 4 step process.  Luckily there is only one side to the cabinets!    

In total it took me about two weekends and a some weeknights to complete the entire cabinet transformation. Stay tuned to see what the cabinets look like all transformed!