Kitchen Cabinet Makeover

We have been busy making over our kitchen cabinets.

Our house is 10 years old and the original builder installed basic wood cabinetry in an oak finish. Even as I am looking at this photo I see that there is nothing really wrong with our kitchen. The problem is that although the cabinet doors are wood, the exposed sides of the cabinets are faux wood. Yep, they are pressed paper board with a picture of wood grain stuck to the board. The oaks just do not match. They are close but I can tell.

And that was bothering me.

See the underside of the bar? That is all faux wood. You can really see in this photo. It reflects differently than real wood.

So it looks fine but it kind of bores me. Since we have a fairly small kitchen I wanted a more cottage look. I thought that the easiest thing to do would be to paint the cabinets a creamy white similar to my dining furniture and kitchen bar stools.

Remember my dining room and new tile? The kitchen wants to be more up to speed with this adjoining room.

While Phil was in the final stages of bar studying, I was deconstructing the kitchen...

It started harmlessly enough. I removed all of the cabinets doors and hardware.

I considered getting new hardware but after reading about my friend Jessica's kitchen cabinet makeover I decided that it would be cheaper to give the hardware its own inexpensive makeover. I laid out all of the hardware: hinges and drawer pulls.

I chose an antique oiled bronze finish spray paint (it matches the chandelier)

and sprayed all hardware.

After the bar was over, we tackled priming and painting the cabinet doors. I thought this would be the easy part since Young House Love makes it seem that way. Such a hard thing for us perfectionists to do!

Now priming and painting the actual cabinets.

This project is quickly taking over our house and lives!

A key feature to this makeover is covering up the faux wood paneling.

We installed paintable beadboard paneling under the bar when we laid the floor. It looks so much better already!

Now that everything is painted I wanted to go a step further and "antique" everything...I must have lost my mind?

So in the last 2 months we have FINALLY gone from here:

to here:

We are really happy with the results except for one little hang up...

the stain that I am using for the antique treatment is Bombay Mahogany. My test sample looked great so I went ahead and antiqued all of the doors except for the two largest. It was getting late in the night and the smell was getting to me. So I went to bed and tackled the final doors a few days later. I should have never waited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know what happened but my stain is not "antiquing" consistently with my previous attempts. The first attempt was very subtle and creamy and the mahogany is really showing through on the final 2 doors. Mahogany is not creamy or subtle, it is RED! So now I have 2 pinky cabinet doors and I am not sure if I will be able to remedy the problem since the first application must have been a fluke!?

Trouble!

See the difference between the left and right side doors? The left is the pink one.

I am stumped and so ready to have my kitchen and garage back. I feel like has turned into a disaster and part of me wishes I had just left it all alone in the first place! Ack! Another part of me is so fed up and frustrated that I feel like ordering all new cabinets and starting over from scratch. Since, the latter is NOT an option at this point I will just keep fussing and hopefully something will work out? My perfection is really being tested on this one. I guess stretching is a good thing?