Hi, friends! Today, I will share with you how we update our kitchen on a budget. I’ve been wanting to do a complete reno for our kitchen but it wasn’t in the budget. We asked our contractor and labor alone demanded $10K of our $15K budget. (Yes, we were probably a little naive about what renovations cost in PA.)
At the time we had one car and hubby asked me to choose between a new car and a new kitchen. I wanted both but he likes telling me we have to discern how we spend our money and “you can’t have everything you want”. The idea was that we’d eventually need a second car, but he wanted to defer that for as long as possible.
I thought for a couple days and chose the vehicle. It was definitely the right decision. I was home all day with the kids and having access to wheels expanded our options.
As a renovation compromise, we painted our laminate cabinets. Yes, I did say “laminate cabinets.” We weren’t sure how well Latex paint would hold up on laminate. We asked the Lowe’s guy and he advised us that we needed a good primer.
Altogether the project took two weeks. After dinner hubby or I would paint the cabinet doors in the basement while the other watched the kids. We took shifts. He said he actually preferred the painting to watching the kids — that it was peaceful, even therapeutic. Ha!
He had some concern with the paint adhering when he easily scratched off a spot of dried paint. I got worried and called Lowe’s and the guy told me it needed more time to cure.
We used Valspar stainblocking primer but would not recommend it because we had issues with the paint not adhering to the cabinets very well. If I have to do this over again I will probably use this one.
Using a very good primer is key for best results and to make sure the paint last long.
With our corian countertops being off-white, we chose a Valspar cabinet enamel in Repose gray paint. I saw these pulls on Fixer-Upper that I really liked. I got mine at Lowe’s but I found one similar here and here.
Here’s the kitchen before.
The mess is par for the course with kids, sorry. I got so excited about the project that I forgot to take better pictures. 🙂
Here’s the after shots.
Isn’t it amazing what paint can do? The kitchen looks bigger and brighter now.
My favorite part of our kitchen is this view of the creek.
I love how it turned out — much more modern and elegant than before.
Are you doing any projects this year? I would love to hear from you.
