When we finally decided to redo the kitchen cabinets, we decided to go with the 'Rustoleum Cabinet Transformation' kit. We had already "been there, done that" with painting kitchen cabinets the traditional way a few years back, so we were antsy for a new, quicker, and easier way to get these done. The decision to redo a kitchen is quite a big decision because of the amount of time and manual labor you have to invest in the process.
Anyway, prior to finally deciding to move forward with the entire project, I did a bunch of research and read a ton of reviews on other blogs of people who had done the 'Rustoleum Cabinet Transformation'. It looked so easy and the pictures looked amazing. It looked like a method that was too good to pass up. Well, the kit (and other blogs...not naming any names) said that the process was SUPER easy and would only take 2 (or even 3) coats MAX. Ummm...I beg to differ. Let's put it this way...The plan was to get the painting done in two weekends. We figured with 2 coats, we could get the top cabinets (going dark to white) done within one weekend and then the next weekend get to work on the bottom cabinets (dark to darker). Well my friends, this was not the case AT ALL. Probably because I had to do 5 coats...YES 5 COATS of white to get from dark to white on the top cabinets. Let me break it down for you:
Step 1: We removed all of the cabinet doors from the top half of our cabinets. (We had to order new hinges, but if you are keeping the same hinges, be sure to organize them in individual baggies so you know which hinges go on each cabinet door. This also goes for the hardware).
Step 3: Wiped down all of the doors and cabinet frame with soap and warm water. The cabinets around the stove were pretty grimy, so we made sure to scrub those down pretty well.
Step 4: Dried all doors and frame with a lint free white t-shirt.
Step 5: Applied the deglosser that came in the 'Rustoleum Cabinet Transformation' kit. Since the chemicals in the deglossing liquid are pretty strong, we wore latex gloves throughout this whole process. We applied a generous amount of the liquid on a green scrubby brillo pad and scrubbed each door and the frame of the cabinets thoroughly. At first we were a little confused because we were under the assumption that all of the paint would come off as well. When we noticed that none (I repeat, none) of the reddish-brown paint was coming off, we decided to take a quick break and head to Home Depot to make sure we were on track.
The employees at Home Depot told us that we were doing this correctly and that the deglosser will not take off the paint, it would just take off top layer of polyurethane that most cabinets have (pretty sure ours did not, but it's good to use this anyway as it acts as an adhesive to the first coat of paint).
Step 6: After the deglosser was applied, we had to do one final wipe down with a lint free white t-shirt. (They sell these at Home Depot, but these shirts just happen to be a part of Matt's "uniform", so I snagged an old one of his).
Step 7: We set up an 'assembly line' in our garage by laying all of the cabinet doors out on two long painter plastic sheet thingies (pretty sure that's not the correct term, but that's what we call them). We didn't really have to worry about taping and covering the inside so much because we are getting new countertops installed. It was actually kind of fun vandalizing our current countertops during this project :).
Step 8: We started by painting the back side of the cabinet doors with the 'Bond Coat' from the 'Rustoleum Transformation Kit'. Since our appliances are all white, we decided to go with the color "Pure White" from the kit. We didn't want anything to be off white next to our super white appliances. Once we did the first coat, we did the first coat on the actual cabinet frame.
Step 9: Instead of flipping the cabinet doors over to the front, I did the second coat on the backside of the cabinet doors again. This is when we noticed that we would definitely need more than 3 coats. We applied the second coat to the inside as well.
Step 10: We ran out of the 'Bond Coat' from the Rustoleum Kit and we were pretty confident that we would need another full coat, if not two more coats, so we went back to Home Depot and they suggested we use 'Behr Premium Plus Ultra Pure White' paint in an eggshell finish. They assured me that as long as this was the last coat of paint on everything, all of the paint would be the same shade.
Step 11: We purchased the Behr paint and went straight home to start on the 3rd coat (3rd coat of the back side of the doors and of the frame...at this point, we haven't even touched the front of the cabinet doors). The Behr paint was definitely a lot thicker and covered a lot more of the darkness from our original cabinets. We were still unhappy with the Rustoleum product and felt that we were mislead into thinking it would be a heck of a lot easier, so I called and they immediately refunded our money. They did suggest that we use primer first and then use the Rustoleum product, but this was after the fact, and to us, it just seemed like the same process as doing it the same old traditional way, so spending $80 on the kit as well just didn't seem cost effective. (I will say that the process from going dark to darker would probably work fine, however, if you are not using their glaze or special finishing techniques, it just doesn't seem worth it to spend that much money on the kit. We will not be using the Rustoleum Kit for the bottom half of our cabinets).
Step 12: We still saw some darkness coming through so we applied one more full coat. After this 4th coat, we FINALLY saw the darkness from the previous color start to disappear! I got a little neurotic with the painting, so I went through and did little touch ups to make for a 5th coat of white paint. I just figured that I had spent so much time perfecting everything, why not just be neurotic all the way to the very end...right? I mean c'mon, how could I not be neurotic?? My house was a DISASTER and I looked like this:
Step 13: After the 5th coat of white paint was applied to the backside of the cabinet doors and the cabinet frame, we finally got around to the front of the cabinet doors. Since we were no longer using the Rustoleum product and going the traditional way, we purchased "KILZ2 Latex" Primer at Home Depot and applied 1 solid coat to the front of each cabinet door. Although hindsight is 20/20, we should have gone the traditional route from the very beginning. You could immediately tell how much stronger the primer was as a base compared to the Rustoleum Bond Coat we used as the first coat on the backside of the doors.
Step 14: After the primer dried, applied the first coat of the 'Behr Premium Plus Ultra Pure White' paint to the front of the cabinet doors.
Step 15: Applied the second coat of the 'Behr Premium Plus Ultra Pure White' paint to the front of the cabinet doors.
Step 16: Applied the third coat of the 'Behr Premium Plus Ultra Pure White' paint to the front of the cabinet doors.
This is definitely NOT the ideal way to redo your cabinets. I also want to clarify that I'm not completely knocking the Rustoleum Transformation Kits. The cabinets we were redoing were already painted and dark, so they may have not been the best type of cabinets to try and get to white with. However, it would have been nice if the instructions had notes about "ideal type of cabinet" to use the product on or tips, such as using primer first if you are going from dark to white.
Hope to have Part 2 of our kitchen makeover posted for you soon!
Have a lovely day!
♥ Natalie
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