Simple. Simple?

Of course I've been dreaming of painting my kitchen cabinets for quite some time.  I've been content with my maple cabinets for almost 10 years now.  But, once I discovered ASCP I began dreaming of what I could do with the cabinets.

 

As you can see cabinets are quite simple and plain.  They do not possess beautiful curvy lines.  They are straight forward flat paneled with just a simple crown molding on top.  My counter tops are Gray Specked Corian and I'm still in love with my back splash.  So after going through many color combo's and a few sample boards I had it narrowed down to Pure White on top and Paris Grey on bottom.

And look what I end up with...

 PURE WHITE

with just a hint of Paris Grey

Simple. Simple.  But was it Simple?

It was and it wasn't.... 

My first hurdle was thinking that after cooking and living in this kitchen for 10 years wouldn't require more than a quick wipe down of the cabinets.  WRONG!  

I found out the hard way!  After applying my second coat on 4 cabinets and their boxes I had a serious situation of cracking and peeling paint!  Paints worst enemy is grease.  Seems that I had quite a buildup of it.  I then had to clean each and every cabinet and drawer inside out with Mineral Spirits and then wiped off the MS residue with Denatured Alcohol (both available at HD and Lowes).  Some of them were so cruddy that I just sanded the crud off instead of all the wiping!  Needless to say this really slowed down my project.  No slapping it on and moving on to the next section!  It took three weeks of off and on again work.  But, that was just me working.  Strange that you seem to lose your friends when you start painting kitchen cabinets! 

After completing all the tops with Pure White, I painted one cabinet on the bottom with Paris Grey and deemed that it was not the right shade of gray to be right up next to my counters.  I could have made a lovely custom gray, but then decided to go with Pure White on the bottom too.  So glad I did!  I am so in love with this clean bright look against my counters and my back splash.  I did paint the cabinets over the stove and the glass accent cabinet here in PG.  It was just the right about of soft contrast needed.

I'm really glad that I went plain and simple with the cabinets.  

But look I see some wood in this picture that could maybe use a really cool, not so simple finish! 

Off to the next project!

MJ