Another Small Home Improvement - Kitchen Paint

My beloved kitchen has been in much need of a makeover for quite a few years now and this summer my goal was to make it happen.  In April I did a small renovation to one of the cabinets which allowed me to create a built in space for a microwave and get ours up and off the counter.  This opened up the area between the stove and refrigerator giving us some much desired counter space for baking and cooking.  We really love this!

We removed the switch plates and masked everything off

Last month the girls and I spent a solid weekend giving our kitchen cabinets a facelift with a couple good coats of gray satin paint, scrubbing all of the hinges and knobs and then putting things back together.  Having the cabinetry looking fresh, clean and new really made my heart sing.

Prime example of why you should take down your light fixtures
rather than to paint around them

I decided to take last Friday off of work and stay home so I could work on the final big part of the kitchen transformation which was to paint the walls and the ceiling.  The night before I got the room all prepped and ready.  I took everything off of the walls and countertops, removed some old curtain brackets and patched the holes.  Then I removed all of the switch covers and washed them.  Once that was done the girls and I taped everything off.  The next morning I was up early and ready to get painting.

I thought my kitchen was white until I started painting - huge difference!

I hate painting.  I'm not very good at it and I have really high expectations of perfection that are seldom realized.  But this time I think I nailed it.  I know some people paint the ceiling and then the walls, but I started in one corner and worked my way around the room, taking my time.

Getting behind the refrigerator
Look at the difference between the new white paint and the old!

It took me over three hours to paint my tiny kitchen.  I had to pull out the refrigerator and paint behind it and while I waited for the first coat to dry I cleaned the exterior of the refrigerator and mopped the floor.  Then a second coat of paint, let it dry and carefully pushed the fridge back into place.  I did the same with the stove.

All done! 

I chose Pure White Behr paint from Home Depot in their best wall paint.  It is a self priming semi gloss because I wanted it to cover really well, be durable and easy to wipe down.  It is a kitchen after all.  I gave both the walls and the ceiling two good coats of paint and only used half of the gallon.  I spent $32 on the paint, 99¢ on a sponge brush. $2.38 on a two pack of 3" roller refills (only used one) and $1.69 on a paint tray liner for this project.  I already had the painter's tape on hand from when we painted the house about 6 or 7 years ago.

I'm so happy to have a fresh coat of paint on everything

Because I took my time, didn't rush and did my prep ahead of time it turned out really well.  Once we removed the tape my oldest and I used artist brushes and some cabinet paint to do a little touch up where we had some bleed through under the tape and I got my perfect result.  Expectations were met and another project off my home improvement list.  I am so excited!

Now onto the next project!