HOW TO MAKE OAK CABINETS LOOK PRETTY & PAINTED + BEFORE & AFTER PHOTOS!

When Aaron & I first walked through the house on Aspen Way, I took one look at the kitchen and wanted to keep looking. It was dark, dated, and the cabinets were too much oak and not enough chic. On the second look, I noticed the solid wood cabinets and the clean lines, and decided the bones of the kitchen were good and wanted to try my very first DIY project in painting kitchen cabinets.

Here's the "How To" on making your kitchen go from this:

To this:

These two pictures were taken from the same angle, and you can see how much of a difference paint and colors can do to a space. 

Here are the full befores, and you can see how much of a transformation this kitchen went through and how great it looks after:

With both Aaron and I working full time, we only worked on the kitchen nights and weekends. For those who have more of their days to put towards a cabinet paining DIY, I would give yourself a week to maybe two weeks, depending on the size of your kitchen. It takes patience and time, but in the end isn't too big of a project to take on. Aaron and I would get so excited that we would move the cabinets before they had totally cured, and ended up redoing lots of cabinets, so let me emphasize again the patience needed that will actually save you time in the long run.

Here's the step-by-step DIY for all you project-istas:

1. Remove all cabinet doors/drawers & put the hinges aside to use later

2. Sand down all cabinet surfaces to rough up and clean. I read a lot of other DIY blog that recommended using a chemical to first clean off the cabinets. I found that a good sand job did the same thing. Wipe down cabinets with microfiber towels to collect extra dust.

3. Fill cabinet grain by applying thick layer of Drydex. We used this one from Home Depot. I liked this one because it was easy to apply with Spackle knife, plus it went on pink and dried white.

4. Once the Drydex is white, you are ready to sand off the excess. You want to use a palm sander, and  do a light sanding to sand off extra, but not too heavy of a sanding job to remove all of the Drydex. The drydex is used to fill in the oak grain and any imperfections on your cabinets (dings, scratches, etc.) Wipe off excess dust with a microfiber towel.

5. Once the grain of the cabinet is filled and all extra Drydex if sanded off, you are ready to paint! I used spray paint because I wanted that perfect, flawless spray-look. You will want to do multiple, light coats and give yourself 12-24 hours between coats to dry. Also between coats, I would recommend doing a light sanding and wipe down cabinets with a microfiber to ensure you keep your doors smooth and clean to get that flawless paint job.

6. Once the paint is all finished, we did a last coat of a clear gloss to keep the finish harder and to protect the paint. This also gave the cabinets a fun, glossy sheen and made them so much easier to keep clean and wipe down.

7. Spray paint hardware to match - we spray painted the hinges to match the cabinets (white on the uppers, grey on the base) so that they hinges blended in and didn't detract from the rest of the kitchen design.

8. Reattach cabinet doors/drawers to cabinet boxes and add cabinet hardware.

Here is the finished kitchen!

You would never know that these were the same heavy grained, oak cabinets. Now they cabinets have a super smooth finish and are light and inviting. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out!

Another tip we did to help open up the kitchen and make it feel larger was to get rid of the drop-down flourescent lighting fixture. We replaced these light boxes with an orb pendant (you can see our DIY project to make your own orb light here) and recessed can lights. Lighting makes a huge difference!

White Cabinet Paint Color | Grey Cabinet Paint Color | Finish Gloss Coat

If you have any questions on any part of the DIY Cabinet refinishing, let me know! Hope this motivates you to try painting your cabinets or to do a fun project on your home.

Xoxo,

Andrea