Operation Kitchen Makeover Phase 1: Painted Kitchen Cabinets (Take One!)

Hey guys!
Yeah...I know the title of this post is a mouthful!  I promise I have a good explanation.  See what had happened was....

I finally started our kitchen makeover (hence the first part of the title).  However, I ran into an issue during my first attempt at painting the cabinets and had to switch up the process halfway through (hence the second part of the title).  Anywhoo, lets get to it, shall we.

**Disclaimer #1:  This will be a long post.  I apologize if its too long, but I wanted to make it as thorough as possible. Hopefully I don't lose too many of you.**

I spoke about my little obsession with white cabinets in our design dilemma post a while back.  I finally wore Naomi down and she went ahead and agreed to let me paint the cabinets.  As excited as I was, I was also scared because I had never painted cabinets before.  I just barely began painting furniture (and I'm still such an amateur) so I knew I was gonna crank out some major research before I attempted to do anything.  So I did what any other project obsessed DIYer would do and took to the www like a moth to a flame. 

Everything I read about painting cabinets said it would be a long, tedious, messy process and I wanted nothing to do with it.  THEN....I discovered Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations!  I know pretty much all of you have heard of it by now, right? It claimed that it required NO SANDING, NO PRIMING, NO STRIPPING.  In theory it saves you a ton of time so you could do the process from start to finish in a weekend.  I was all in!  I ran to Big Orange and picked up the light kit in Pure White.  (Sidenote: The color options are provided via a pamphlet and are NOT an accurate depiction of the actual color you will get.  Pure White in the pamphlet looks like Ivory/Beige.  In real life it is PURE WHITE.)  I picked up the smaller kit that covers 100 sq ft. for $79.99. 

--Just in case you are not familiar with the product, everything you need to transform your cabinets are provided to you in the kit, including the scrubbing pads for the deglossing step and an instructional DVD.--

This is what it looks like when you open it:

Before I got started on the cabinets I needed to make a few changes to the structure of a couple of cabinets.  Originally we wanted open floating shelves flanking either side of our cooktop.  We planned to remove the over the range microwave, replace it with a range hood and replace the entire row of upper cabinets with floating shelves.  That was the dream.  Then we were smacked in the face with reality.  We ran into an issue with the way our ducting is vented out.  In a normal perfect world the ducting for the venting would be centered over the stove, but in our world it looked a bit like this:

Because the ventilation to the exterior is off-centered it through a snag in the plan.  Reworking it would have been a logistical nightmare for newbies like us so we came up with plan B.  We decided to keep the upper cabs and just remove the doors.  That way we still get the open shelving, just not floating.

Prepping the cabs took a little work.  I removed the doors.  Did some minor demo to remove the center stile and patched up all the shelf holes with wood filler (72 of em to be exact!) After the wood filler dried I gave them a quick sanding and it was time to paint.  Here's a before and after:

Once I got the cabinets all squared away  I watched the instructional DVD and set to work on the cabinets. 

Since the kitchen is fairly large and I was working on this alone while Naomi was at work I chose to break it up into sections.  I was only going to be doing the upper cabinets this time around since they would be painted white.  The lower cabs are getting a different color and I didn't want to overwhelm myself by trying to tackle it all at once.  I took off all the doors and separated them from the cabinet frames so I could focus just on the frames at first.  I wasn't sure how it was going to work out so I didn't want to dive into to the doors until I was sure about it.  Boy I'm glad I did!

**Disclaimer  #2:  The review of the product I am about to give is based solely on my personal experience with the product and by no means means you will have the same experience I did.  I am an extremely honest person and will only ever give my complete 100% honest opinion.  The product was not sponsored and was paid for me** 

Step 1: Degloss.- This is the step that is the most important of them all.  This step replaces the need to sand so its imperative that you degloss well.  Deglossing thoroughly ensures your bond coat ( paint color of choice) goes on well.  Prior to deglossing I scrubbed down my cabinet doors and frames with hot soapy water so deglossing was fairly simple.  I didn't have to scrub too hard because I already gotten rid of all the gook and dirt build up.  At this point I was pretty much just  "roughing up" my surface.  If you have oak cabinets or any other wood species that is raised (you can see and feel the wood grain) it is very important that you scrub WITH the grain of the wood.  Our cabinets are maple with a veneer covering so they are flat and you cannot see the wood grain in them so I could have scrubbed in circles, but I still scrubbed in the direction that the wood would have gone. The deglosser smells like a typical household cleaner and is easy to use.  I have no complaints about it.

Step 2: Paint the Bond Coat. - After you degloss and let your surfaces dry you apply your first coat of the bond coat and let it dry for 2-3 hours.   This step claims to give you coverage in 2 coats.  It DID NOT.  My first problem with the bond coat was the consistency.  I read other reviews about it and people described it as a pretty much a thick paint.  However, mine was the opposite!  It was a consistency much like milk.  It was extremely thin.

Problem #2 I had with the bond coat was that it starts to dry extremely fast.  This was a major problem for me because though I wasn't a super slow painter I am a newbie and I suspect most people using this product will be.  Fast drying paint pretty much always equals undesirable brush strokes.  That's exactly what I ended up with.  I invested in 2 Purdy brushes for this project so the brushes are definitely not to blame. It was recommended that you don't use a roller so I worked only with a brush.  I was really careful in my technique ,as well,  brushing exactly as it demonstrated in the video; taking care not to brush over the same spot multiple times, and making sure I didn't stop or start a stroke in the middle of one continuous stroke.  It was still difficult to work with due to the fact that it dries so quickly as you are working.  **If you have Floetrol it would be a good idea to add some to the Bond Coat to help give you more open time.  It will also help minimize brush strokes** (A lesson I learned from this experience)

Problem #3 I had with the bond coat was that it did not cover in 2 coats. As a matter of fact, it didn't even cover in 4 coats!! Our cabinets weren't super dark and it still would have taken me at least 2 more coats to get  good color payoff/coverage.  Now keep in mind the bond coat has to dry for at least 2 hours in between each coat so this was not a fast process. And remember, I was only working on the frames and hadn't even begun on the doors yet.  By my 4th coat I moved on to Plan B.  Honestly, I was so frustrated with everything that I was done with it.  I decided to go out and buy some paint and use that as a final coat for the frames as well as the cabinet door.  Here's what it looked like after my first coat of the bond coat (sorry they aren't the best pictures in the world:

 

and after the 3rd coat:

Although you can't see very well in these pictures, even at 3 coats some of the wood grain was peeking through.

So here's my overall review.  The concept of the Cabinet Transformations is genius.  The actual process was less than desirable for me.   IF you are covering medium to dark cabinets with one of their lighter color choices you may run into problems.  The dark kit may be a different story altogether.  You may be able to get good coverage in 2 coats if you choose one of the darker colors.  I also may have gotten a bad batch of the bond coat because of how thin it was.  I felt like it wasn't as easy to use as it suggests, especially for someone who is very new to the whole cabinet painting thing.  I also feel like Rustoleum should consider either changing the formulation of their bond coat to make it so it doesn't dry so quickly OR they should add a paint conditioner similar to Floetrol to the kit to use alongside the base coat to help with this issue and help minimize brush strokes.   I haven't used the final protective coat yet so I can't speak as its performance, nor do I plan on using the glaze.

Bottom Line: Do I hate it? NO.  Would I recommend it? Not for cabinets, but maybe for furniture. 

I know this was a super long post but  I wanted to provide as much detail as possible just in case any of you were considering giving the Cabinet Transformations a try.  Tomorrow I will fill you in on Plan B and show you the finished product of the upper cabinets.  I promise it wont be nearly as long since since the process was better.  Until next time....

XoXo- Shavonda