Painted {Cabinet} Lady

One of the many projects with our little kitchen-redo is re-painting our cabinets.  Here's my take on painted cabinets.  With the exception of our first year of marriage {suuuuuuper tiny overpriced apartment in college town}, we've always had white painted cabinets.  The rundown:

• We bought this house in the summer of 2006, and the seller had painted the dark brown {don't picture pretty cherry wood or anything...picture crappy 80s builder-grade cabinets} cabinets white.  Too bad she didn't paint the inside and used about 3 too few coats.  Not a good look.
• Soooo, not knowing any different {this was before the influx of home-improvment blogs or Pinterest, if you can remember such a time}, I went to Menard's and bought a gallon of Dutch Boy kitchen & bath paint and went to town.  With a regular paintbrush.  Wah, wah.
• My sweet mother-in-law did replace the ugly cabinet door inserts with beadboard.  Huge improvement {I'd share the before pics, but our dinosaur computer ate them all a few years ago}.

• Things remained much the same over the next several years, and then we moved to Ohio for a year and rented our house.
• While in Ohio, our apartment had these terrible yellow-orange fake wood cabinets.  It took me about 2 hours to high-tail it to the nearest Lowe's to grab some paint.  Again, I failed to do any research and just painted away our deposit {totally worth it, btw}.

So.  Back in our house, getting ready to revamp the kitchen, it was time to assess the cabinet situation.  I like white cabinets.  I feel like they make the kitchen look clean, big, and I think they have a timeless look that works with any decor style.  But I hate white cabinets.  I keep a pretty clean house, but those suckers are tough to keep clean.  Especially with little hands around.  And husbands.

I always said that if I ever changed our cabinets, I'd make them gray or something.  But when it came down to it, I went with white again, mostly because of our existing countertops.  We installed slate gray granite about 4 years ago, and love it.  Not interested in changing it {you can see it in the pic above}.  I was afraid that if I painted the cabinets any color other than white, it would be too dark for our window-less {and tiny} kitchen.  And believe you me, I Pinterested the crap out of it.

So white it is.  This time, though, I really did my research.  I literally had dreams about white cabinets, so suffice it to say that I was obsessed.  Behold, the fruits of my labors:

• After extensive Googling and Pinteresting, I decided on Benjamin Moore's Simply White.  I wanted something that would 'read' as white, but have a slight color so that it would help hide fingerprints and add some depth to the cabinets.  So many good things were said about Simply White, so that's what I went with.  It did not disappoint.  It looks a little on the 'creamy' side here, but it reads white.  And beautifully so.

• The next big decision was the type of paint to use.  I knew for sure I was NOT going to be using the $20/gallon stuff.  That is just fine for walls, but I knew from the past 7 years that cabinets require the good stuff.  The two top contenders were Benjamin Moore Advance Paint and Sherwin Williams Pro Classic.  Both are self-leveling {amazing!!!}, and both come equally recommended in the blogosphere.  I just love our Sherwin Williams store, so I went with them.  They are so helpful and kind, so I knew that if I had problems, they'd be there to help.
• Yes.  This paint is expensive.  They were having a 30% off sale, so 1 gallon, along with some supplies, was $60.  I can't tell you enough how worth it this is!  Cabinets take a beating, and you just need to use the expensive stuff.  Do it.
• Proper prep work and good materials/tools are key.  I'll detail the steps I used in another post, but just don't skip the prep work.  That's what makes the cabinets last more than a few months.  My Sherwin Williams guy set me up with some tools I'd never used before, and those made all the difference, too.  I'll include all that info in the step-by-step post.
• Finally, hardware is more important that you'd think.  We went with oil-rubbed bronze, and I can't even begin to tell you how much I love the contrast with the white cabinets.  We just had chrome before, and it was blah.  I took the time to hunt down affordable hardware that I loved {we did re-use the hinges}, and it makes all the difference.

So that's how we came to our white-cabinet decision.  I'll write up all the details in another post, with photos of our {kind of} finished cabinets!