Painting Oak Kitchen Cabinets Darker In Clearwater, Florida
I finished up a kitchen cabinet job yesterday in Clearwater, Florida by installing the doors I had worked on. The week before I had worked on the framework of the cabinets. The entire job took about 2.5 - 3 weeks to complete. Painting kitchen cabinets takes longer in time than just about any other work I do. You have to take your time and go through the proper steps. Its a lot of work.
With this job I started off with the kitchen cabinets being a 'honey oak' finish. That's just the natural oak with a clear sealer over them. Frankly, now days that's considered a little but country. I typically work on cabinets like this and change them either a darker look or I paint them an off white with a hand rubbed finish on them. In this case the client wanted them to have a darker look.
Here are some comparison before and after photographs. In this first comparison you can see how much darker we made them. Changing out the door handles made a big difference also. You can also see how the lighting was updated. They had a center fluorescent light and changed to small spots on the ceiling. They also installed a new counter top getting rid of the Formica and using corian. Of course they got a new sink and painted the walls too. This kitchen looks really looks great now with the new updated look and feel.
This last picture is pretty close to how dark and how the tone of the wood really is.
With this job I started off with the kitchen cabinets being a 'honey oak' finish. That's just the natural oak with a clear sealer over them. Frankly, now days that's considered a little but country. I typically work on cabinets like this and change them either a darker look or I paint them an off white with a hand rubbed finish on them. In this case the client wanted them to have a darker look.
Here are some comparison before and after photographs. In this first comparison you can see how much darker we made them. Changing out the door handles made a big difference also. You can also see how the lighting was updated. They had a center fluorescent light and changed to small spots on the ceiling. They also installed a new counter top getting rid of the Formica and using corian. Of course they got a new sink and painted the walls too. This kitchen looks really looks great now with the new updated look and feel.
This last picture is pretty close to how dark and how the tone of the wood really is.
This is exactly what I want to do. I've found all of the supplies except the right paint color. What paint did you use? Did you use two colors and a glaze to create a wood grain look, or just one color of paint?
ReplyDeleteThese kitchen cabinets were honey oak and I made them very dark using minwax stain/poly (oil based) of one quart of antique walnut then added 9oz of the minwax stain/poly expresso and 7oz of Bombay mahogany. The reason I did that was I had to match some other wood work existing and there was not a perfect match available off the shelf. Once I got the color right it took two coats to get it dark enough.
DeleteHope this helps.
What is the wall color? We are currently stain ours the same color and lost for paint ideas. I like how yours looks
ReplyDeleteI believe the client ended up painting the walls a celery type color.
Delete