Upper Cabinet Spruce Up

At first, I liked our white kitchen cabinets.  After living with them for eight years, I am sick of them.  They show up dirt and look dingy no matter what I do.  When I see all white interiors on TV, I cringe.  After finishing the backsplash I showed yesterday, I was inspired to start in on the upper cabinets right away.  The first step was to take off the upper doors and give them a good cleaning.

I stuck with the same gray paint I used for the stencil on the backsplash.  Grey was chosen because some of the glass tiles in the countertop on the other bank of cabinets are gray.  Who knows, they could also be green -- since I am color blind, I can't be sure.  Another reason I picked gray was that it is the intermediary color of black and white, which are two major colors in the room.  Of course, it helped that the paint was inexpensive too! The end result required three coats.

Once the fronts were painted, I did the insides using the white which is the base for the backsplash.  It made no sense to go gray on the interior because the mullions for the glass are superficial and the white shows through.  I did not feel it was worth the risk to remove and paint because if there was damage, I'd have the hassle and expense of replacing that.  Besides, I was keen to keep the contrast because I planned to leave the insides of the cabinets white.

Here's how they look put back together.  The exterior got a fresh coat of white too.  Another reason I stuck with white as the base, is that the melamine cabinets on the other wall are white and I don't think they will take paint well.  So, this was sort of a lipstick on the pig solution.

I am an instant gratification kinda girl, so I did the right set first.  Once they were done, I called it a day.  The other set was done today and I'll post them tomorrow.

TBG is super happy. I know they look home-crafty, but this accomplished the goal of reducing the amount of white in the kitchen.  We are both happy with anything that reduces the amount of white.  Color us colorful!