Our Painted Kitchen Cabinet Update – No More Maple!

MAPLE (WOOD) KITCHEN CABINET MAKEOVER

When we bought our home two years ago, I knew the kitchen was not long for this world. Sure, other people thought it was just fine – I mean, the cabinets were solid wood; what can be bad about that, right?

Just because it’s wood, doesn’t mean it’s good    ~moi

Are they good because they’re solid wood? Sure, and they’ll still BE solid…under three coats of GLORIOUS WHITE PAINT!

LET THE PAINTING BEGIN!

This was our kitchen before – decent bones, just not our style. And although you can’t see it in the photos, the side gables were NOT solid wood and had faded to a soft pinkish colour, and the doors around the sink area needed some serious KLC…

Drum roll, please (or just tap your fingers lightly on your wine glass…)

Wanna know what we did? Oh, I say ‘we’ like Tim was involved – you know I make all the big decisions around here (wink wink).

OUR KITCHEN MAKEOVER – THE GUTS N’ THE GLORY

The previous island was 3×5, and while it worked, we had the floor space to extend it by an extra 18″. This meant that it would need some extra support (unlike my chest, which needs minimal, at best #TMI); here are the details…

• We extended the island by 18″ on the end to have three stools instead of two. I scooped up the stools secondhand – FIVE of them! This made the island space look MUCH larger and more proportional to the room, without remotely infringing on any pathways.
• I had my friend and craftsman Christian make up an island base/support for us out of reclaimed wood – MAD love.
• To save money, I chose a quartz counter for the island and an affordable laminate countertop for the rest of the space

Do you want to see what the island looked like before? Trust me, you don’t, but I’ll show you anyway…

YES, this is what happens when you don’t prep your cabinets properly by sanding and priming them. It’s like putting latex over oil-based paint – THE PAINT WON’T STICK and will peel off! I’ll also enforce the fact that it was not me, nor anyone I know, who did this…SACRILEGE!

With some prep work (clean, sand, wipe with a tack cloth, prime, paint, and let it cure) and the right type of paint, this is what the cabinets SHOULD have looked like…

Delea of Details Painting did the prep and painting and did an AMAZING job. I don’t mind a good DIY project and tackled the cabinets in our last home, but they were oak, and oak is much more (ahem) forgiving for less than epic painters. I also had a lot more time on my hands. And while I’m a pretty good painter, but I would NEVER tackle smooth maple cabinets on my own!

Delea took the drawers/doors away and sprayed them smooth as a baby’s bum! The pieces that couldn’t be removed were hand-painted and you can hardly tell the difference between her brush-work and the sprayed stuff  – friggin’ genius!

Now let’s take a closer look at those lover-ly legs…

Simple and solid was what I was going for.  I didn’t want too much decorative detail as the wood itself with a light gray wash would do the decorative work for me!

The Countertop and Cabinets

For the perimeter countertops, I chose Formica Soapstone Sequoia from the 180FX Collection (read a post I wrote about them here). I wanted to make a visual connection with the quartz that would complement – not compete. I wasn’t looking for ‘statement’, I was looking for ‘seamless’…

Read more:  The New Era of Laminate Countertops and Why They Rock

(BTW, there is nothing affiliate going on here – I was not paid to write about this stuff nor given anything for free – insert sad face here). However, you know you’d get my honest opinion anyway.)

Again, choosing a laminate countertop instead of quartz saved THOUSANDS of dollars on ye ole budget, which left me some room to do other fun things – like buy wine! This countertop mimics the look of soapstone and to be honest with you, the quartz island countertop is more high-maintenance than ME!  I see every speck on, even after it’s wiped. The formica/laminate? I can not wipe it for days (true story) and not see a thing. In fact, I didn’t notice some of the junk on the counter until I took photos and realized there were crumbs…oops.

I LOVE this backsplash.  It was installed by my fave local tile guy, Brett Edwards (BE Tile) – he did a great job. Because the cabinets weren’t entirely level, he had to hand-cut each and every perimeter tile – and he did it with a smile (and probably an inside voice that was full of 4 letter words).

The Open Layout

Our main floor is an open layout living room, dining room and kitchen, so one thing ALWAYS relates to another. This is another reason (other than my OCD) why our dining room AND living room both received makeovers in the last 6 months – knowing that the changes in the kitchen would be a HUGE shift for the entire space.

Before, our open layout area felt heavy and dark…

Now it feels like a breath of fresh air! And while our lighting situation is in a bit of transition (really, everything in our home is), there was nothing I could do about the pendants over the island.  The original builder only put 1 junction in, so while in the ideal world I would have 2 pendants hanging independently of each other WITHOUT a huge honkin’ track tying them together – it ain’t happenin’ this go round.

Read more: Our Painted Maple Cabinets – 2 Years Later…

Remember my blog post about ‘how to add light to a dark room?’ While this room is south facing and had tons of light, it had about as much energy as me at 7 am – nadda. Reflective surfaces move the light around a space, adding energy and life!

The only place I want to see a racing stripe is NASCAR – not on my backsplash…

This backsplash is not just trendy (you know how I feel about trends), it is also RIGHT up my alley as I find the hexagon to be one of the more timeless patterns.  Not too soft, not too edgy – juuuust right.

Now you might think that I drank myself a few bottles of wine, snapped my fingers and got all of this done.  Nope.  Like a lot of my clients, this kind of stuff takes some serious coin and I had to BUDGET!  We did the countertops about a year ago, the backsplash and appliances 6 months ago, and the painting and general furnishings 1 month ago.  I don’t mind taking my time if it means I’m making smart choices and the end product is going to SUPER fabulous AND affordable.

Read more: E-Design – Another Maple Kitchen Makeover: White Down

The Whole Kit n’ Caboodle

Here’s a series of photos to see how the kitchen and dining room relate to one another…

Read more:  Our Farmhouse Country Dining Room

Read more:  Our Living Room Makeover

Read more: Another – Maple Kitchen Makeover

So there it is – she’s done…well until next month anyway (wink wink).

UPDATE: Want to know how well they held up? 

Read this: Our Painted Maple Cabinets – 2 Years Later

Chat soon!

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