RTTPYO #5: How I Painted my Kitchen Cabinets White to Fix the Gloomiest Kitchen in Earth (Part Two)
- nvilu7
- May 21
- 6 min read
Updated: 15 hours ago
Trim, Hardware, and the Finish Line
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About the RTTPYO Series
RTTPYO stands for Removing Things That Piss You Off — the small home problems we tolerate for years before finally fixing them.
In this series, I tackle one everyday annoyance and show how a simple design change can make a space work better.
Before & After
When an Ice Storm Interrupted My Cabinet Painting Project
In Part 1 of this series, after completing the 5th coat of paint on the cabinet doors and drawers, I was forced to abandon ship.
In February 2021, a brutal ice storm hit the Willamette Valley. Trees snapped, power lines went down, roads and sidewalks were impassable, and over 350,000 homes lost electricity.
My condo was one of them.
Three days later I was rescued by my sister in her four-wheel drive SUV. I spent a week with her until my power was restored. When I finally got home I spent a day checking my condo and the property for ice-related damage and cleanup, then resumed my painting project.
Luckily, the paint held, even though the condo’s temperature dropped to 45 degrees.
Three days and three coats later, the cabinet doors and drawer fronts were a pristine white. It took almost two gallons of paint and 8 coats to get there.
Adding Crown Molding & Painting the Cabinets
Leaving the doors and drawer fronts on my work tables, I turned to the cabinet boxes.
Before painting the boxes, I added simple crown molding to the top of the cabinets. After measuring twice and cutting once, I glued the crown molding to the cabinet, then held the molding in place while I nailed it into the cabinet top using finishing nails.
The following day, after the glue was fully dry, I sanded down a few rough spots, spackled those spots and the corners, and sanded it all smooth, and dusted to get the surface ready for paint.
I pushed the contents of each cabinet deeper into the cabinets’ interior to keep everything inside paint-free. I also applied painter’s tape above the crown molding to protect the ceiling.
Then I started painting the cabinets, cabinet sides, kickplate, and the new crown molding.
The mini roller worked great for everything except the molding, for which I used my 1” slant tip brush. It took the paint three hours to dry between coats.
Like the doors and drawers, the cabinet boxes needed eight coats to fully cover the dark mahogany stain. I used a total of 3 ½ gallons of paint for the entire project and had a couple of jars left for touch ups.
Replacing Cabinet Hinges and Handles
After the doors were snow-white, I realized that they deserved new silver-toned hinges and door handles to coordinate better with my steel sink, faucet, and appliances.
I started looking online to maximize my choices and found zillions of options for both handles and hinges. To simplify my search, I decided to simply replace the old hinges with the same type in silver. I ordered a “test hinge” online that looked like my current one, but it didn’t fit my cabinets.
After that fail, I went to a Big Box hardware store with one of my original hinges, compared it to the silver-toned ones in stock, bought one, and took it home to test. After confirming that it fit, I bought the rest online.
Door and drawer handles are easier to buy—just measure the distance between the screw holes (center to center) and choose your style.
Here’s something to remember about door handles. Even in a small kitchen, you’re going to need a lot of them. The price on a single handle isn’t eyebrow-raising until you multiply it by the number of handles you need.
I found the perfect crystal handles—at over $50 apiece. After doing the math, I chose an alternative—a chrome handle with small crystals that caught the light but did not suck all the money out of my wallet.
Painting a Glass-Doored Cabinet Interior
I could see how much brighter my kitchen was going to be with the white cabinets and silver-and-crystal handles. So, of course, I decided to crank up the zhoosh factor a bit more by using a metallic silver paint on the inside of the glass doored cabinet that held my wine glasses.
It would break up the cabinet run and add a bit more sparkle behind the wine glasses.
I ordered DecoArt Americana DÉCOR in Sterling Silver and prepped the cabinet interior. After the cabinet exteriors were painted and thoroughly dry, I painted the cabinet interior. It took three coats and almost three jars of paint to cover.
The new, shiny cabinet interior broke up the white expanse of cabinets and reflected the light of the kitchen’s ceiling lamp.
Reinstalling Cabinet Doors and Drawers
When I received the new hinges and handles, I:
opened the box holding the old hinges and handles bagged by door/drawer number,
pulled the bags out one at a time,
carefully matched the new hinges and handles to the old ones,
counted out the new items,
bagged the new hinges and handles separately, and
put that bag in the corresponding bag holding the old hinges and handles.
Yikes.
It was a huge pain in the ass, but it eliminated second-guessing later.
DecoArt recommends a 21-day curing time after the final coat of paint is applied for items that will receive heavy use. Thanks to the ice storm, I was well past that time with the doors and drawer fronts. To give the cabinets some curing time, I waited five days for reassembly.
It was torture but worth it for the added durability.
Before reinstalling I covered my countertops and floor with towels to cushion potential cabinet door drops that could mar the new paint.
I then took out my “map” of the cabinet doors and drawers and the box containing the bagged hinges and handles. One at a time, I matched each door (number still attached to the door with painter’s tape) to its number on the kitchen cabinet, then matched the door to its numbered hardware bag.
One door at a time, I attached new hinges to a door, then attached that door to the corresponding space in the kitchen cabinet, then attached a new handle to the door now rehung in its old spot.
I completed the upper cabinets first to eliminate the possibility of dropping an upper cabinet door on a lower door and marring the finish.
It was painstaking, yes, but for me it was worth the extra time and effort. By focusing on one door, cabinet space, and set of hardware at a time, and matching all the numbers for each door/drawer first, I never second-guessed myself and never looked up to see that a newly-attached cabinet door was the wrong size for the cabinet opening.
Lo and behold, my kitchen was considerably lighter and brighter, even on that gloomy winter day.
A Full-Light Exterior Door for Even More Light
I loved my white cabinets but I wanted to make one more upgrade—to swap my solid back door for a full-light exterior door with built-in blinds.
After waiting over an hour for assistance at the Biggest Big Box Hardware Store, I drove to The Other Big Box Hardware Store and bought my new door and scheduled installation in seven minutes.
After the standard 3 month wait, my door arrived with the installer. Two hours later my new door was installed, and my kitchen was super BRIGHT for the first time since I bought the place.
I was able to put a plant on top of the refrigerator and one on the kitchen island—and they both thrived.
The best feedback came from a friend who had last been to the condo when the kitchen was still a place where cooks die of sadness.
He walked toward the back of my condo, rounded the corner into the kitchen, stopped dead, and yelled “HOLY SHIT! IT’S SO BRIGHT BACK HERE!”
Well said, my friend. Well said.
Painting your kitchen cabinets isn’t complicated (except for handle and hinge management, that is).
It is:
Detail-driven
Repetitive
Unforgiving if you try to rush
Worth it
The best part? I didn’t have to replace my kitchen to get what I wanted.
Everything I Used to Paint my Kitchen Cabinets
Paint & Prep
Painting Tools
Trim & Installation
Crown molding
Finishing nails
Spackle or wood filler
Hardware
Cabinet hinges (match your existing hinges)
Cabinet pulls/handles (Franklin Brass and Top Knobs have a great selection and great quality without the spendiness)
Screwdriver or drill
Protection & Setup
Drop cloths or old sheets
Zip-top bags (for hardware organization)
Still contemplating whether to paint your kitchen cabinets yourself?
Download the free Kitchen Cabinet Painting Checklist for a realistic step-by-step guide, supply list, labeling system, timeline expectations, and several warnings designed to prevent tears, regret, and mysterious leftover screws.
Up Next
With shoulder surgery looming, I figure out how to adopt my home so I can function with one arm.
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