Painting our Built-Ins

Before we moved in, we knew that we wanted to paint the wall of built-ins in our family room. Here's a picture I took the day of our home inspection.

The room overall had a very dark feel due to all of the wood and dark furnishings in the room as well as all of the trees that make our home always in the shade. A couple months ago I painted our mantle white and it made a HUGE difference so we knew that this wall of built-ins needed to be done, also.

I started with a trip to Lowes Hardware to get our paint and supplies. I came home with a two gallons of paint + primer in one in "Pure White", several new paint brushes, some new painters tape, and this baby.

My very own power sander. I was in love.

Next, I removed all the doors and laid them out in the garage on top of 2 x 4s so that they weren't laying flat on their backs. I painted the backs of the doors first.

Hint: Number each of the cabinet doors and hinges as you remove them. This will make it much faster to put them back when you're done.

I put a coat of paint on each of these doors, then tackled the first coat of paint on the built-ins themselves.

We let that dry overnight and then I put the second coat on late the next evening. Honestly, they could have stood to have a third coat, but we were tired of the mess so we decided two coats would have to be enough for the built-in cabinets.

I put the second coat of paint on the cabinet doors and then let them dry 2 hours (recommended by paint manufacturer). Then I flipped them and put on one, two, three coats of paint. This was by no means a perfect paint job because quite honestly, it took forever and I got tired of messing with it :) .

At that point, while they were drying, I spray painted each of the hinges and the cabinet knobs with oil-rubbed bronze paint. This paint is AMAZING, but make sure you use it outside or in a really well ventilated area. It is STRONG.

The next day, I got to reattach each of the cabinet doors, put the hardware and knobs back on, and begin putting our belongings back onto them. Here's the finished mainly finished product.

Here's a before picture again:

Total project cost: Around $100 (including power sander)
Time spent: 1 week off and on- could have been done in shorter time period if you had more free time than we do.
I was able to complete this project completely by myself other than when my husband helped me put on one of the coats of paint on the cabinets so that we could get it done sooner. I ended up removing two of the upper cabinet doors over the wetbar area to have more room for displaying my books and photos. I have plans to convert that wetbar to a built-in desk area at some point in the future.

What do you think? Like the changes? I am so glad that we completed this project, I love the changes and the brightness it brought to the room and I am most happy that it is FINISHED!!!