Cape Cod in Portland #4: Kitchen Makeover

This was the second project I tackled shortly after moving in to the new place. The kitchen had nice quality oak custom oak cabinets all around, yellow formica countertops, florescent lighting. It was well maintained but certainly did not conform to the ‘look’ my wife was going for.

Basically we wanted a kitchen makeover, but didn’t want to spend a fortune. Things we really wanted were:
-recessed halogen lighting
-granite countertops
-new flooring
-hanging pot rack
-white painted cabinetry

In order to make room for the hanging pot rack, I removed the faux hood over the range. It was an awkward cupboard with doors that opened at an angle. The faux hood easily came loose from the wall and the project was started.

Next, all the cupboard doors needed to get removed for painting. I wanted to do a nice spray job on them rather than brushing. I needed a new compressor and spray gun for this. I figured I was saving money over having someone else come spray them.

I used my garage as the spray booth and outfitted the covered patio with hooks to hang all the doors to dry. I sprayed on a couple coats of oil based stain blocking primer followed by a couple coats of hi-gloss white oil based paint. It went on pretty decent but my twin hot dog tank Ridgid compressor was sure getting a workout. I used this compressor combined with a Harbor Freight HVLP conversion gun. I needed to thin down the paint with some Penatrol to get a smooth finish.

I also sprayed the cabinets inside. You can see the halogens are now installed. I removed all the old recessed florescent lighting and framed/drywalled the ceiling smooth again so the halogens could now occupy the old recessed areas. The kitchen is pretty small so I used six 4” halogen floods.

I painted the cabinets in two phases, first the overhead cabinets. Then the lower cabinets after the countertops were installed. The kitchen still needed to be functional during the whole makeover so I had to do things in weekend size chunks. Here is the granite tiles I installed and the beveled edge subway tiles going in as a backsplash up the wall all the way where the hanging potrack would go. I butted the granite tiles against each other without a groutline to give the look of continous granite. I filled the joints with clear silicone wiped clean afterwards so it looks like no grout but still keeps water from going between the tiles. It actually turned pretty good. The paint on the walls is also done at this point. We also added brushed nickel knobs and pulls and replaced all the old brass hinges with brushed nickel ones.

I took some time out to build a custom high power rocket for a big event in Black Rock, Nevada.

Here are a couple pictures after the kitchen is put back together. All the trim, windows, door jambs and doors entering the kitchen were also repainted to match. I replace the old pendant light at the far end of the kitchen with a new one from schoolhouse electric
I guess I don’t have a picture of the kitchen after installing the flooring. I tore up the old linoleum to see what kind of wood flooring was under there. The floors were fir of a few different widths, while the rest of the house was oak flooring. I decided to go ahead and lay plywood over the floor and install espresso colored marmolium.

I think after it was all done, we had spent around $1000 to update the kitchen.