Here’s How to Paint your Kitchen Cabinets

Refreshing a room in your home is different than renovating. A refresh is a smaller project: it’s less expensive and less labour-intensive. The goal of refreshing a room is to give it a new look without ripping out appliances or knocking down any walls. You might want to do a refresh before putting your home on the market or renting it out, or simply for your own enjoyment. Interior designer Tiffany wanted a temporary kitchen refresh until a full home reno could be undertaken. Follow along and see how she completed the amazing transformation.

The kitchen in our new lake house was actually quite functional. It was just outdated and really not my style. My rule is if I have to look at and live in a space for more than a year, I better really like it. So I contacted my local Home Hardware and planned out a few small, budget-friendly changes to help make my kitchen more livable and loveable. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of my fabulous kitchen refresh!

1. Remove the Glass Cabinets

First to go were those giant glass display cabinets on the island. It instantly opened up the room and created better sightlines to our fireplace and living room, and most importantly, our lake view!

2. Paint the Ceiling

As you can see the glass cabinets left some unsightly outlines on the ceiling. Since I’m pulling down the old track lighting anyways, now was the time to paint the ceiling. Flat White Latex Ceiling Paint by BeautiTone covered the cabinet marks and brightened the whole room.

3. Pry Off the Old Cabinet Moulding

Next up was the decorative dental moldings on the tops of the cabinets. It’s amazing how much removing those fussy looking mouldings updated the look of the cabinets for a more modern, streamlined look.

4. Update the Lighting

The track lighting that spanned the entire kitchen was extremely dated and needed to go. Instead of replacing it I opted for a cleaner look and simply installed new retro-fit LED lights in place of the old, dated pot lights.

5. Paint the Cabinets

By far the most impactful change was painting the kitchen cabinets. The paint department at Home Hardware has a ton of great options that can take a room to the next level. I really love their BeautiTone Cabinet and Furniture paint and have used it on many projects. I thought about painting the backsplash tile but then it wouldn’t match the floor tile. Instead I chose a cabinet colour that would complement both. Harrow Gate by BeautiTone really delivered here, making the beigey-tones of the tile feel more intentional and tone-on-tone.

6. Paint the Island

The island colour was inspired by the bluey-green colour of our lake after a storm, and I think we nailed it with Spacebox by BeautiTone.

7. Swap Out the Old Faucet

Another affordable update was replacing the old chrome faucet with a more contemporary, matte black faucet. Switching out a faucet may sound intimidating but it’s actually a fairly easy DIY project and can really update the feel of your kitchen.

8. Paint the Countertop Edges

We also decided to paint the wood edge of the countertops to create the appearance of being one solid piece. I had some leftover black trim paint from painting our fireplace (Black Licorice by BeautiTone) so I used that here. It’s such a small change but it makes everything look more cohesive and really come together!

9. Replace the Cabinet Hardware

The white knobs on the cabinets now looked horribly out of place. These were replaced with simple and affordable matte black knobs.

To say I’m pleased with how this turned out would be the understatement of the century. By spending a little bit of time and money on these affordable updates, my kitchen is now making me very happy. I can’t wait for everyone to see it!