Oak Cabinet Makeover

How was your weekend?

We had AMAZING weather here all weekend – which is strange because last week we saw frost in the mornings. This global warming thing is playing havoc with our seasons (but this weekend it was to our advantage).

I spent almost every minute of the last three days in my workshop (aka the garage), working on projects for clients and friends.

One of which was this oak cabinet:

This was a gorgeous – and very heavy – piece. Solid oak with the back of it finished in oak as well. There really wasn’t much damage on it at all; but the grain on the top had raised slightly and the colour was a tad out of date… so the owner wanted a refresh.

Can you blame her? Not when you have knobs and handles like these:

These look like something out of Kim Kardashian’s closet! Big, bold, spectacular and definitely not suited to a yellow oak cabinet. DEFINITELY time for a cabinet makeover.

I gave the entire piece a light sanding to smooth the grain and remove furniture polish and rough up the old varnish. I washed it down with TSP to remove any residual grease, dust or dirt and then primed the entire piece inside and out. I did need to fill the old handle holes with wood filler because the new ones were much larger and would need re-drilling.

Because I didn’t strip this down to bare wood, there was some stain still left on the surface which, as you may already know, tends to bleed through paint. To stop this, I applied two coats of primer to the entire piece and a third coat to the top ‘just in case’.

The cabinet makeover was completed with three more coats of Cloud White in BM’s “Advance” series paint. This paint is as close to oil as you can get in terms of hardness after curing – but with a water clean-up, so it’s my favourite to use on pieces like this.

If you are trying something like this yourself, I’ll give you a little tip: buy flocked foam rollers. They are a bit pricier, but they leave a much smoother finish. Not quite as smooth as a good paintbrush and a smooth hand, but pretty close.

Cabinet makeover done, I put everything back together and voila!

Unfortunately the handles came with screws that weren’t long enough to go all the way through the cabinet doors, so you’ll have to imagine them there in all their sparkly goodness.