Updating, raising and painting kitchen cabinets

I know that there are a bunch of cabinet painting posts out there where it only took a couple of days to paint the cabinets… well that is clearly not how fast my project is going. Now I will say that I knew going in to this project that it would take a lot of time, be messy, tedious and pretty much a pain in the ass, but if I wanted painted cabinets I was going to have to suck it up, put on my big girl panties and get started!

So you know I finished the butler’s pantry a couple of month’s ago… which I am so happy with!

Then I took a little beginning summer break and me and my hubby started working on raising the kitchen cabinets and adding open lower cabinets. So our kitchen currently looks like this, nope I didn’t even straighten it up for you, no glamour shots here… but I can see how much I’m going to love the finished product already!

I removed all of the dishes from the cabinets and all of our everyday dishes are temporarily housed in the butler’s pantry, everything else is laid out on the dining room table… it looks like I’m getting ready to have a rummage sale in there and I’ll have to wash everything that’s there when I’m done due to all of the dust I’m creating…

The cabinet below was a H-U-G-E pain in the arse for my hubby to build, but I think he did a fabulous job and I love the fact that it is one large cabinet rather than 3 individual pieces, it will give us so much flexibility for the space. He also added an electrical outlet in it in case we want to put a microwave or something else in the cabinet.

As much as I know my hubby would love to be done with the cabinet making part of this project he still has a rather simple one to add to the top of the stove and refrigerator space. We also added a wire from the under cabinet lights to this area so that it can be lit at the same time. This will be the only area in the kitchen cabinets where I will have decorative items, all of the other open cabinetry is for everyday dishes, glasses etc.

We also changed our mind on the range hood and decided to install this hood instead of a custom wood surround.

I think that the black of the hood in combination with our black island cabinets will be a very nice contrast to all of the white cabinets. So we had to remove some drywall, install a 2×4 support and shift the electrical over so that it will be hidden by the hood as well. When we were done we just patched the area with 1/2” plywood and I will patch and prime the entire area in preparation for the tile. Yet another scope creep item, we will be installing the tile backsplash all of the way up to the ceiling behind the hood… did we need to do this, no, but will it look better if we do… yes, I think it will look stunning!

So I’m slowly working on adding trim to the sides of the cabinets, caulking, filling and priming, in general I’m having no fun, but it’s better than being outside in the hot muggy hotness that has decided to reside over the Louisville area for weeks!!!

I will (eventually) be painting the interiors of the open cabinets the same color as cabinets themselves, but I’m pretty sure I will be using paper or fabric as a removable colorful backdrop in them.

Just so you can see a comparison to where we were before we started this project and today, it’s getting there slowly but surely!

What you can’t feel is the sense of height that raising the cabinets to the ceiling gives you when you walk into the kitchen, it just seems so much more grand for some reason, I love it! Obviously getting to the top shelves will require a step stool, but I am planning on storing all of my china and rarely used dishes and cookware on the highest shelves so that I will rarely have to get anything down from there. Well I guess I have stalled long enough from working on the kitchen… better get back to work and get this project done!

Until next time!