weekend projects (painting cabinets)

My husband has been stalking google for the past few weeks, looking for pictures of white painted kitchen cabinets.  We have medium brown oak cabinets, you know the ones that come with the house...nice quality, not awesome color.   We have known since we moved in that we were going to redo the cabinets.  But, over the course of this past year and a half, it has gone from me re-staining to having them refaced, and now to potentially me painting them white.  not white white, but creamy white, maybe with a little distressing?  I haven't decided yet.

Because my kitchen is literally the heart of my house, being part of a very open floor plan, I have to make sure that whatever I do (or hire out) results in something that is beautiful and compliments the rest of my house.  I hate spending money on things that I don't need, like thousands on cabinet refacing.  That money could be much better spent on more important things like shoes and Coach bags!  If I am anything, it is frugal in the wrong places!!  But that's ok, because I am quite sure that a new shiny Coach bag will look awesome sitting by my diy painted cabinets!  I decided to paint my laundry cabinets and guest bathroom cabinets this weekend, as "practice" for the kitchen.  Here are some pictures of my laundry room, I just finished it this morning.

newly painted laundry cabinets...i accidentally put the door hardware on the drawers, and the drawer hardware on the doors...i think it looks good though

the other side of the laundry room, i really need to find the pedestals to go under my washer and dryer!  that's what i get for buying appliances on craigslist!  that lighter color on my wall is reflection from the light, not a bad paint job  haha!

i still have to sand and repaint the door to the garage...previous homeowners half painted it....it looks really crappy, especially now that my laundry room is so pretty!

I am such an airhead, I forgot to take "before" pictures of my laundry room.  So, I'll tell you what it looked like.  The cabinets were stained oak, the walls were a light tan color from Raplh Lauren's "river rock" collection, that shelf above my washer and dryer was deep red, and there was a builder installed basic light.  I forgot to take pictures of the new light fixture.  It's not that exciting though, so I'm not too concerned with showing you.

Here's what I did on the walls:
1. 2 coats of Killz2 primer to cover the grittiness of the river rock paint
2.  2 coats of Martha Stewart eggshell finish in Cumulus Cloud

Here's what I did on the cabinets:
1.  Light sanding to remove varnish from the cabinet doors
2.  Instead of sanding the door facing, I used Sander/Deglosser on the door facings, because I didn't want the mess of the sander in the house.  Actually, I don't even know if it is called the door facing...but that's what I'm going to call it.  It's the part of the cabinet that holds the shelves and is attached to the wall, you know what I'm talking about!  :)
3.  2 coats of Killz2 primer, sprayed on with a spray gun (I hate the spray gun, by the way)
4.  3 coats of Glidden semi-gloss in Picket Fence, with light sanding (220 grit paper) in between each coat.  I did a final light sanding with 320 grit paper after the last coat.
5.  I added hardware to the drawers and doors.

Here's what I did on the shelf:
1.  Light sanding to remove the gloss from the red enamel that was on the shelf.
2.  2 heavy coats of Killz2 primer with a paintbrush (not the stupid sprayer).  I let these coats each dry overnight, because i was covering red with white.
3.  2 heavy coats of Glidden semi-gloss in Picket Fence, to match the cabinets.

Everything I did to my laundry room was so much easier than I expected it to be, which is the reason I am sharing.  I get easily intimidated by things like putting holes in my cabinetry to install hardware...but it was a piece of cake.  Be looking for some tutorials soon, just in case you are interested!

-Amanda