Painted Upper Cabinets for the Beverage Bar

I have finally finished and re-hung our painted upper cabinets for the beverage bar! Let’s celebrate ya’ll. I am so happy to have this project behind me. (even if I am not totally happy with the paint… so shiny, and terrible with self levelling, but I am trying to let it go! haha) It completely brightens up the space, and the cabinets feel much more at home in our light and bright living room. I still need to paint the lowers- you can read more about some of my color inspiration for those babies here. I’ll be leaving that until after the One Room Challenge though!

The white feels meant to be… so much brighter, and so pretty with our hex marble backsplash. If you aren’t familiar with this little bevvy bar, we purchased ready made stock cabinets from Rona with the intention to paint them. They have solid wood door fronts, and were really affordable. They also happened to fit our space perfectly. The counter top is quartz, and was purchased for a steal because it was a remnant from the “bone yard” of a local stone fabricator. We ordered the copper sink from ebay, and the faucet from overstock. The pulls are stainless steel, from IKEA.

You might be wondering, why the round sink? For one, this is a very tiny cabinet space, 15″ to be exact. So we needed a sink that was about 12″. This fit the bill- it’s affordable, pretty, and small. It works perfectly for filling our coffee pot each morning! We didn’t think we would be able to fit one, but I am so glad we were able to make it work.

As a reminder, here are our cabinets before they were painted.

I much prefer the white! Light and bright, and more fitting to the overall feel of our home. (check out our Home Tour)

I still have plans to add trim to the bottom to conceal the lighting, as well as some ideas for the space above the cabinets so that they feel more built in. Who even knows when that will happen. I am just thankful for the motivation of people coming over, and knowing that I was about to start ANOTHER painting project in the boys room- to get these doors finished. I get project ADD- can anyone else relate? My key piece of advice is don’t clean up- don’t put the paint away! It feels like so much more work to get everything set up again. I also try to make myself finish bigger projects before starting another one. That being said, I have about 5-10 projects happening around the house right now… oopsy! Guess I need to follow my own advice.

Have I mentioned how much I love our planked ceiling? #givemealltheplanks

I grabbed the blue and white mug on my recent trip to IKEA- isn’t it darling? The other 2 pieces are thrifted and gifted.

Most of the hardware I have in the house is black/oil rubbed bronzed. However I didn’t want there to be a major contrast on these cabinets, so I chose something that would blend in more. The pulls are the same stainless steel finish as the fridge, and in the end I think it works. 

You can see how they relate to the rest of the room. Slowly getting there!

It wasn’t too crazy painting these cabinets. A totally doable DIY- if you are thinking of painting cabinets of your own. I did sand prior to priming, as well as between each coat. I ended up doing one coat of primer, and 3 coats of paint. I did take the paint in to get re-tinted after the yellow fiasco, and it helped. I used a brush and foam roller. I am really contemplating buying a sprayer though…

I would love to do a comparison between these doors, and my painted farmhouse cabinets that I pretty much didn’t prep at all, and used flat paint on. I much prefer the finish, but I really wanted these uppers to last- no chipping, and a good surface for wiping clean. Only time will tell if it was the right choice! They are “semi-gloss” but I think I officially hate gloss of any kind. AH! Oh well. I’m over it.

I hope you have had a good start to your week. I’ll be back tomorrow with an update of the Boys Cottage Bunk Room… making progress there too!

-Miss Ash