Semi Kitchen Makeover: Paint Job!

When we bought our house, we knew there was a lot of work to be done. Not really necessary work per say, but things to do to get it up to par with our style. Well, in the year and a half that we've lived here, we have done quite a few updates. The kitchen has always been one of the top things to we wanted to work on - of course, it can also be one of the most expensive things to remodel!

Here is the lovely kitchen when we moved in:

Well, we don't have a ton of money stashed away, so we are always looking for ways to a) save money, and b) do ourselves. Every time we head over to Home Depot or Lowes, we wander around (mostly the kitchen and flooring areas) just to check things out. We toyed with the idea of purchasing new cabinets before because we really don't have that many of them to being with. Also, our cabinets aren't real wood, not even the doors (just the door frames?). But, once you begin adding them up, it starts to eat your money.

So we ultimately decided that painting our cabinets would be the best bet for us for now. I did a bunch of online research to make sure we would get everything we needed, especially the right kind of paint and primer for the job. If you're thinking about doing this yourself, this guide from thisoldhouse.com helped a lot. Also, if you have laminates, this article was REALLY helpful for us. So yeah, DO YOUR RESEARCH!

A couple of tips:

1. As your a removing your doors/drawers, number them. Especially if you are using the same hardware, if you mix and match, after you are done you may find that things aren't fitting how they should. I just ripped piece of tape and wrote the numbers on them.
2. Make sure you have a BIG work area. We spread out everything in our garage over paint tarps.
3. Don't be too anxious. Most everything I read said to wait 1-2 weeks (sometimes more!) for the paint to "cure". If you put everything back together too soon, because the paint can still be semi sticky, your doors/drawers could possibly stick to the cabinet base and ruin your pain job!
4. Hardware. Don't think that everything you purchase will work for you right out of the package. We had to buy longer screws for our handles than what came with them. We also purchased new door hinges, and tried about 4 different ones before we got one that worked correctly (hint: buy several different types to try, THEN purchase the necessary amount. oops). I think I had to go to the hardware store about 6 different times. Ugh.
   

So yeah, the most important part:

I love love love it! Although the awesome new paint job and hardware make our icky white floors and counters look even more blah, that's okay :)

Edit: Oops, forgot to mention that this only cost about $125 :)