PAINT YOUR OLD KITCHEN CABINETS OR GET NEW CABINETS?

1. PAINT YOUR OLD KITCHEN CABINETS OR GET NEW CABINETS? PAINTING VS REMODELING If you are in the mood for change, the kitchen is a great place to start. And the first question you should be asking… Should these cabinets stay or should they go. If you can ask to the melody of “Should we stay or should we go” by The Clash, even better! Right? We are the second owners of our home and this kitchen had unbelievable maple shaker cabinets in pristine condition. I could see in my mind the vision for a white kitchen…yeah I know, its been trendy for sometime and maybe more now than ever. LEARNING FROM THE PAST... BUT in our last custom built home, we chose dark espresso cabinets….. mind you this was back in 2008 when dark espresso floors and cabinets were also on the trend. But the real kicker was that our old property was surrounded by tall alder trees and evergreens, gorgeous… but blocked the sun light. Our last kitchen was SO dark. I knew in the new house that I wanted white and bright!!! WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS! Yes, we have 4 kids and this was probably not the most kid-friendly decision, but I honestly didn’t care, when we have gray weather for 9 months out of the year. It really helps brighten the house and my mood. Haha.We have the most amazing painter and when they came over to prep the kitchen, we were in a bit of bind. We knew we wanted white cabinets, but our trim work/doors throughout the home were more of a cream color. We went with White Dove by Benjamin Moore. It is the perfect balance of white and warmth. I seriously love this color! That meant we ended up painting the trim too… more on that later… but we stuck with our guns ongoing bright white rather than cream white, like the existing trim. GREYS GREYS AND MORE GREYS! For the island, we could have painted it the same color… but I also wanted the contrast of a darker color to blend with the tones of the appliances and match with the grout in the subway tile. And on an even more practical note, I knew there would be kid wear, making white difficult to maintain on the island. We went with Gauntlet Gray by Sherwin Williams. This was our second choice of gray…. Honestly grays change in the light and I’m letting you know sometimes it is trial and error. Better to correct the first time until it’s finished and then it’s too late. We had purchased at least 15 greys and even borrowed samples from a friend who recently painted too… we put all of the greys on these big cardboard squares to make the worlds largest and most thorough sampling