Unconventional Approach at Making Over Cabinetry Is A Success!

Many of you know that I have been working on my master bath since Spring.  I was unhappy with the overall contemporary style of the room and wanted it to flow with my master bedroom.  I revealed my master bedroom makeover a few months back.  This is what it looks like.

You can see, the bedroom is light, bright and airy.  We installed the bead board to the chair rail to finish off the room with a traditional, country flair.  I wanted this for the bathroom as well.  I have run into snag after snag, mainly due to my inability to make a decision.  Bathrooms are expensive to makeover and once you make a decision, you are pretty much financially stuck with it.  So I hired a designer because I was feeling like a needed an outside source for assistance. 

She came up with very beautiful drawings, but just the cabinetry bid came in close to $10,000!  Talk about shock.  Understand something....there is nothing wrong with the present cabinetry.  All they really needed was a re-style, but you are hard pressed to find anyone who is willing to just switch out the cabinet doors and such.  I figured that I was back out on my own.  I spent a month beating myself up for having spent the money and searching for ideas that were more affordable.

I considered buying special order, unfinished raised panel doors at a cost of 50 dollars a door.  After all, I could refinish them myself.  Then, I came up with a crazy plan and put it into action.  You know what?  It worked!  It worked so well, I wish I could post this everywhere so that all DIYers out there can see this. 

First, I had my helper Ed decoratively router out the center of the melamine doors.  He then routed the inside of the door in order to lay in bead board.  We weren't sure if it was going to work with this material. The surface of these doors are engineered...kinda like a mica product.  We thought that they might chip or lift.  But guess what? Nothing chipped, spilt or anything!  It worked!

Here is what it looked like sitting getting ready for refinishing.

Ready for refinishing

Backside of cabinet with bead board set in.

I was so excited at this point because the melamine had completely held up to the routing.  Now I had to see what was going to happen to the freshly cut open materials when paint came into play.  I was wondering if the exposed material would warp or flake.  I wondered if the engineered surface would take the paint.  Guess what?  It didn't warp or flake. I sanded the engineered door surface to prepare it to take the primer.   Then came two sprayed on coats of  Zinsser 123 Bulls Eye Primer.  The doors took the primer like white on rice! I then finished it off with several coats of Sherwin Williams Duration Paint in a Satin Alabaster White making sure to gently sanding between coats.  Take a look at this!

Look at the routed decorative edge! The white paint just brought it right out!

Oh....how I love that fresh white surface...and that bead board! To die for I tell ya!  I hand painted the other areas of the cabinetry in the bath by hand alternating brushing on layers of paint with rolling on layers with a small foam high density roller.  I like the surface I get interchanging the two techniques.  Smooth, but not too slick and contemporary. 

We installed the doors this past week and here is what they look like now.

I am so excited about the results of this project.  Instead of $10,000, the project came in at about $250. (I paid Ed to do the router and bead board work, plus materials)  Not bad, I'd say.  If you notice, I changed out the knobs too.  I will talk about the knob project sometime in the next few days and show you how I made them. 

For those of you who haven't seen the before images, I put together these two collages. 

I hope this project inspires you.  Do you have cabinetry somewhere in your house that you just don't love the appearance, but feel like it isn't up to the rigors of a re-surface?  Well, I am here to tell you that you just may be able to pull something off for very few dollars!  I'm am not going to sit here and tell you that this was the easiest project ever.  It took a lot of diligence and patience.  In the end, it paid off.

*****UPDATED TO THIS POST!  If you want to hop over and see the cabinet knob tutorial post  Cabinet Knobs Using Stones and Jute there will be a back link to this post.*******

-The End-

Featured!! Yeah!!!

Linking to: