Kitchen Cabinets Refinished: Part Dos

So my husband brought it to my attention several times in the last couple weeks that I never provided the conclusion to our kitchen cabinet redo.  Hence, here we are!

So in the Part Uno post I showed you how the upper cabinets looked after being whitewashed.  Now for the lower cabinets which were a little trickier.  We started the lowers a looooong time ago by sanding and painting the backside that is basically one big sheet of wood, a couple drawers at one end.  It was super messy- but after having painted the white cabinets and using the "liquid sand" we decided we really wanted to lower cabinets to be very durable.  After all, they will get bumped and scavenged by tiny hands more so than the uppers. 

So the first thing we did was to remove all the drawers and cupboards from the frames and JB got to work with the orbital sander.

Then came a coat of black paint- later to be followed by a couple coats of polyurethane which really brought out the color (I know- "What color? It's black!" but let me tell you- definitely more black and less charcoal after the poly).  The poly also helps add durability and makes them easier to clean.

 

We bought the same style of shaker doors for the lower cabinets.  They received two coats of black paint and two coats of poly.

 We found that the second coat of poly  went on and dried more smoothly if they were lying down when it was brushed on.  You can kind of see the difference in the the pictures above and below.

The extra job we had for the lower cabinets was replacing all of the drawer fronts.  For this we purchased solid planks of Aspen wood from the hardware store down the road and ripped them to size.  I would venture a guess that this saved us about $175 compared to the alternative of purchasing drawer fronts for about 20 drawers at $15 each.  They got the same treatment as the cupboard doors:

We then measured and installed cabinet hardware and drawer pulls, after which we sat back and enjoyed our hard work.  I think I must have walked into the kitchen at least 20 extra times that night because I was so in love with the finished product!

 This little space houses a cutting board that I haven't quite decided what I'd like to do with....I'm thinking a space for my baby and future babes to help do some cooking since it's a little more their size.

Before

After

Love.  Love.  Love.