Painting Cabinets White

I can't believe how huge of a difference something as quick and easy as painting cabinets white can have on the entire look of a kitchen and feel of the rest of the living areas.  Before we embarked on our little DIY project, these units were a deep cherry stain.  While the room certainly has the space to accommodate such a bold color, I really wanted white kitchen cabinets to give this space a bright and cheerful look.  We began by tearing out our old tile floors and replacing them with this ashy wide plank wood, then set out to tackle the cabinets. A read a ton about painting kitchen cabinets in order to figure out the best products and processes to ensure that they looked professionally done.

Painting cabinets white seems so boring to me, so rather than doing that we opted for this fun Wedgwood blue shade. I have been really inspired by looking at photos like this online so I wanted to post some of my own in hopes that other people may find some good ideas from our kitchen remodel.  My husband and I battled for some time over adding blue painted kitchen cabinets to the room but ultimately my design preferences won since I would be spending the most time in there.  I understand that the concept is a bit "out there" but, ultimately, once the project was finished he really liked how the room turned out.  Admittedly, I am biased, but I think that these are some of the best kitchen cabinets that I have seen in awhile and would look fantastic with a variety of decor preferences. 

No matter what the style of your home, I always recommend painting cabinets white because it gives an instantly clean look to the kitchen whether you have gone with a contemporary or more traditional theme.  I definitely think that this is the best paint for kitchen cabinets because it is timeless and simple enough that it will attract just about any potential buyer or picky guest to enter the home. You can use it as a foundation for just about any color or decor palette and pair them with a wide variety of metal (or porcelain) knobs and fixtures.  When painting kitchen cabinets white, the opportunities are absolutely endless and always result in a fantastic design like the one in these photos. 

Painting cabinets white was definitely the best choice we could have made for our kitchen, both in terms of style as well as cost. As you can see, our base cabinets were definitely not bad in terms of style, I had just always envisioned an all white kitchen in my home. We started by cleaning and stripping the dark stain off of the existing units in order to give a nice smooth surface for the new bright white color.  The guy at our paint store told us that the best paint for cabinets is water based so that is what we went with.  I opted for Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace as the white paint because it has lovely depth and a neutral enough undertone that it can go with either warm or cool toned accents.

If you are looking for a cost-saving way to update the look of your kitchen, I cannot say enough good things about painting cabinets white.  It is no surprise that replacing cabinetry is pretty much the highest ticketed item in terms of a kitchen remodel budget breakdown.  Repainting kitchen cabinets offers a way to completely transform the look of old units with just a couple of cans of paint.  So many great homes have those ugly oak or white washed cabinets so popular in the 1990s and 2007s.  While the quality and overall design may still be good, the overall finish definitely needs some updating to work within todays trends.  Nowadays kitchen cabinet paint colors range from a classic white like in these photos, to pretty much any color in the rainbow including navy (my favorite), green, grey, and black.

I am not going to beat around the bush here -- in this humble designer's opinion painting cabinets white is absolutely always a good idea.  This is such a simple and classic color palette that will simply never go out of style.  Even if your decor, backsplash, furniture etc. becomes out dated, the foundational white kitchen ideas will always be a source of timeless elegance.  This particular home is a great example of how you can transition a more traditional space into something that is fun and contemporary.  For this client's latest remodel, we kept the cabinet paint colors as is, just swapped out the old hardware, range hood and backsplash and, voolah, you have a completely new look.