Good to Know

So you are starting a kitchen project…

When we get asked to provide a quote for kitchen cabinet refinishing, it inevitably turns out that there is more work happening in the space than just the cabinets.  Here’s a little post that walks you through the priorities of the work, when they should be scheduled, and why. Enjoy!

First Step-Flooring
If you’re doing your floors, that should come first in the project line up. It’s messy, it’s stinky, and you’ll more than likely need to leave your house for a few days.  I have yet to see a floor refinisher who did not inadvertently splatter stain on the wood trim or the cabinets, so we want to avoid that happening to fresh paint obviously.  We were once involved in a project where the floor refinisher’s tools scraped a 6″ swath of paint right off of the entire length of the cabinets. Thankfully we had not done our work yet!

Second Step-Countertops
Countertops are your main design element in the kitchen space. You  may have your heart set on creamy white kitchen cabinets with a dark countertop, only to head out countertop shopping and fall in love with a white Carrera marble that just won’t work with creamy white.  It’s an expensive part of the project and really should drive your other color choices in the room such as wall paint, cabinet paint, curtains, etc…  In addition, removal of the old countertop involves tools that could potentially damage or chip the paint of the cabinets. Sometimes there needs to be leveling and extra adhesive/caulking added to the countertop which could drip on to the cabinets, and removal of that drip will surely impact the cabinet paint.

Third Step-Backsplash
If you’re having a new backsplash installed, we always suggest doing this before the cabinet painting as well. It’s certainly not required like the previous two steps, but it sure does help pull in all the design aspects together before the painting begins.

Fourth Step-Painting of Walls
Like step 3, it’s not required, but strongly suggested before we walk in, primarily due to the fact that the painters like to use tape on the cabinets to have nice crisp lines and it gives me absolute nightmares thinking about tape going on freshly painted cabinets 🙂

Fifth Step-Cabinet Color Selection
After all that, the fun begins and we get to choose colors for your cabinets! We have the ability to obtain 8″x8″ color samples from the Benjamin Moore color collection and usually suggest that we get your choices down to 3-4 and order you 3 free samples of each of those colors to hang on your cabinets. This lets you see the comparisons, the different undertones, check the colors out during various times of day and different lighting.

Sixth Step-Hardware Selection
Once we have your color selection complete, we typically send our clients to dlawlesshardware.com to take a look at their knob/handle/pull selection. They have a tremendous variety of styles and choices at affordable rates. We are always happy to help narrow down your choices and make suggestions!  New hardware needs to be in your home one week before the project begins, especially if you are needing new holes drilled. (We outsource the drilling of the new holes and that needs to be done before we start.)

Phew! I know it’s a lot to process, but we hope this clears up the order (and reasoning!) for you as you head out on your kitchen restyling adventure  ~Kelly

 

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