DeNovo Salvaged Decor: Kitchen Update with Chalk-Painted Cabinets

(The finished space)

I am here to tell you that this Chalk Paint has held up VERY, VERY well in my kitchen withOUT polyurethane and the only protective coating being dark and clear wax! It has been there for at least 6 years so far!

The remodel I am about to share with you was done so long ago that I find myself today thinking of new ways to update my kitchen. I have to say my choices back then have held up nicely even though today's kitchen standards have already evolved way beyond. I am not sure what else I can do to this kitchen that could add any real value to my home.

You see, before we dove in and tackled this project ourselves, I had brought in a kitchen design center to create a new space from top to bottom. That was going to cost us tens of thousands. After speaking to our real estate agent, we would never get that money back. We don't live in Beverly Hills. Yes, I know, most resources tell you the kitchen is where you can make the money spent back, but not in my town. I live in a town where they price houses as if they are all new builds no matter what shape they are in. It is truly terrible living in a place like that because I have looked at so many houses over the years that I would love to remodel but they make it so it just can't be done. It's like they look at any and all improvements you make to a house as just yours for only you to enjoy while you live there. What you spend, oh well! So, considering I couldn't get the kitchen of my dreams, we went with Plan B--the plan where we wouldn't lose ALL of the money we put into the project. We DIY'd it!

Let's start with the before pics from 2005, 15 whole years ago!!

Back then, all I had was a digital camera and getting photos of this galley-style kitchen was next to impossible, but as you can see all the cabinets were original to the house from the 1960s and had this routered pattern on all of the doors and drawers. Excuse the mess but we had a 7-y/o and a 5-y/o, and I was 6 to 7 months pregnant when starting this renovation so while my husband was tearing things up, I was trying to keep the family rolling as if nothing was happening around us! It is a small space, so we tried to stay out of each other's way! There used to be a scrolled decorative piece of wood stretching between both of the upper cabinets as well, but I had already removed that by the time we had decided how we were going to update this kitchen as least expensively as we could.

I can't believe it when looking back on these pictures today. We used to have a countertop microwave in the corner! It was black because the appliances where we lived when we bought it were black. We already had a very, very minimal amount of counter space as it was so we knew we wanted an over-the-range microwave!

(note the very slim cookie sheet cabinet in the corner)

Gotta love that blue linoleum floor, yellow countertop, and brown kitchen sink dontchya!? The hunter green and apple decor was the theme I had brought with us from our prior residence, which was a two-bedroom duplex rental that we had to quickly find when my husband was relocated for his job. This was our first home! Chalk paint didn't even exist at this point as far I know!

(tiny counter & wall to left of stove)

I am not even sure how I managed to function as long as I did with these two teeny weeny slices of counter space on either side of my stove. This is when the stove and fridge were new. The ones that had come with the house were the 1960s harvest gold color. We bought new appliances a few years prior to these pics before stainless steel was the thing and after my oldest, then a toddler, had put items into the oven unbeknownst to me and I then preheated it, which started an oven fire and melted all the plastic inside all over the oven racks. That was fun. Good times! At the time we bought the new appliances I figured white was our best bet since we had no idea in which direction we would be taking our kitchen when the time came to actually do it.

(the wall we removed)

(removal in process)

(removal complete & test cabinet updated & painted)

I figured that removing the wall to the left of the stove would open the space up a bit and it really did! I decided that the very thin cabinet that had been next to my sink in the corner for the cookie sheets would serve me better next to the actual stove so we decided to move it there. I also wanted a dishwasher and wanted to keep the counter peninsula but a full size dishwasher would push that peninsula out so close to the patio door frame that I worried it would make the dining room feel smaller so we discovered there was such a thing as three-quarter-sized dishwashers and we went with that, also in white! To keep the counters even, we made sure that the tiny counter top space to the left of the stove would extend a tad to match up closely with the new-to-be extended counter on the sink side with the addition of the dishwasher. It seemed a little awkward at first to do this but because I really really wanted the cookie sheets next to my oven, we wrapped the new counter around that little section of wall left by the pantry door.

The pantry used to be this home's only coat closet but the people before us converted it into a pantry so that we didn't even have a coat closet until we built one by the back door!

As you can see, we tested out our idea on a single upper cabinet door. I went to Home Depot and chose a few different styles of wood trim. Mr. Fix It and I played around with these various pieces until we found one that when applied to the top of the cabinet door gave us an updated look and hid the routered design perfectly! It also hid that design on the drawer fronts as well! I also chose a trim style that would give the cabinets a cove-effect on the top and the bottom! You would never know that these cabinets are from the 1960s and original to the home!

(Before with a paper towel holder blocking view. Sorry!)

(After with new trim added on both the door and top & bottom of cabinet)

Now, back then at that time, since there was no Chalk Paint, I had chosen to go with a slightly off white Behr paint and polyurethane. I tried to keep things neutral so as to keep it appealing when we decided to move. I also tried to choose my floor tile to better accommodate all the traffic these two rooms receive with soon-to-be 3 kids and a dog! The dining room used to be carpeted. As with most polyurethaned white-painted items, they looked great for a few years but then yellowed with time, which is how I came to chalk paint my cabinets 6 years ago!

Firstly, I needed to lightly sand and scuff up the polyurethane layer on the now-latex-painted-white cabinets. Then I went with two coats of the Annie Sloan Greek Blue base color and covered that with three coats of Pure White. I then distressed down so the Greek Blue was showing through and used both dark and clear wax. The dark wax accentuated the details better and highlighted the shabby beachy vibe I was learning toward nicely. I sanded most of all of the surfaces so that the depth of the texture was minimal first.

I also painted the insides of all the drawers and cabinets the Greek Blue color and purchased new hinges and hardware! My husband was too nervous about installing hidden hinges and it seemed that one small mistake would mean we would be buying all new cabinets so we went with new in brushed nickel, the same as the drawer pulls and cabinet door knobs.

Since the focus of this blog is painting, I will briefly touch upon the other changes we made to this space. We went with a neutral-colored Corian countertop and sink because we didn't want to worry about having to reinforce the kitchen floors from below in the basement due to the weight of granite, created a new little cookbook nook near the pantry door when the counter was extended, and switched the bulky more square shaped cabinets that used to be over the stove out with the shorter, more rectangular cabinets that used to be over the refrigerator to gain the space we needed to accommodate that over-the-range-microwave that we wanted! I also refinished the plain yellow-stained oak table and chairs set changing the table top and chair seats to a walnut stain and painting the rest of the chairs and table base the same color that the kitchen cabinets had been, a Behr Popcorn and polyurethaned color. I have thought about chalk painting the dining room set but at this point we have a couple of broken chairs and are looking to purchase an entirely new dining room set.

Here are some After shots!