Renovating Outdated Kitchen Cabinets

JOCELYN: I have 1970s cabinets. They’re really, really dark. I’ve started taking the varnish off. Now I don’t know what else to do with them. (Tom laughs)

LESLIE: (chuckling) OK.

TOM: You got halfway through the project.

JOCELYN: (overlapping voices) Friend of mine told me to paint them and crackle but I’m not sure. I would like to resell the house and I want the best look possible and I don’t know what type of paint to use.

LESLIE: Alright, are you at a point where the old cabinet is ready to accept a new treatment or do you still need some more work there?

JOCELYN: I’m still working on them. I have half a kitchen to go but I’m ready to start at least on the part that’s bare wood now.

LESLIE: OK. Crackling is a really nice effect. What you can do with a crackle paint is you would paint a base color – and it can be something in a similar tone; it can be something super-contrasty, like you could do a chocolate brown and then the crackle paint and then a white on top of that, so it gets an interesting sort of contrast underneath that crackle. It is a very specific look and if you’re dealing with a kitchen that sort of has a vintage-y, country feel, it could be very nice.

I think a big trend that we’re seeing in kitchen design are super-light, very clean cabinets. So I think if you have an opportunity to paint the cabinets a beautiful tone of a white or a vanilla – you know, something in that off-whitish area – just to kind of make the kitchen space pop and feel bigger and feel much cleaner, I think that’s going to be very successful; plus, a neutral space is very nice. And if you’re having a hard time with some of the doors, you might want to think about replacing maybe two of the doors, maybe in a key area along the line of cabinets, with something that has a glass front also; just to sort of break up the space and give it something a little bit more focal-pointed or feature-y in that line of cabinets.

JOCELYN: Oh, OK. That sounds neat. (chuckles)

LESLIE: It’s a nice project and if you take the doors off, make sure that you label everything so you know exactly which door and which drawer front go where. And leave the hinges on one of the items – either on the door or on the cabinet box itself; so this way you know exactly what goes where, you’re not readjusting screws. You know, put some painter’s tape on the backside of the cabinet door and on the inside of the cabinet box and put like “Door A” so you know where things go.

JOCELYN: OK.

TOM: And get it done, Jocelyn. And think of the good things about how much money you’re going to save on takeout food when you get the kitchen done.

JOCELYN: I know. I’m tired of eating out. (all chuckle)

TOM: I bet. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.