Reno Your Kitchen With Just Paint(mostly)!

I purchased my first home recently and it is great fixer upper! While I have really ambitious plans for the kitchen (full gut and remodel), I wasn't quite ready to start that large of a project. But I also didn't want a dated kitchen when I host and have guests over! My plan: quickly do a few paint projects that will make a HUGE difference. The biggest updates included: scraping popcorn ceilings and repainting, repainting cabinets, painting Formica countertops, repainting headboard, and lastly repainting that ugly tile floor!!

Step 1: Removing Popcorn Ceilings

There are many ways to remove a popcorn ceiling. I've used the water and scraper method before and it works okay. When I bought this house every ceiling had popcorn which I knew I had to remove! 😑 So I bought a Wen 9-in drywall sander that attaches to my shop vac and vacuums the dust as I sand. For $130, it's an awesome tool to use! I will say it's quite an arm workout, but with a lot of practice you can remove your popcorn ceilings with minimal dust and minimal skim coating required (to repair spots you sanded too much). I then just painted the ceiling.

Step 2: Painting Beadboard and Cabinets

This step is pretty self-explanatory. Since this isn't a permanent flip I decided to keep the cabinets as is. I gave them a light sanding and removed all of the doors and drawers. While I painted the base cabinets, my mother painted the doors and drawers in another room (Thanks mom!). I decided to go with a bold blue and white color scheme, I used Behr Starless Night for the blue on the cabinets and ultra white for everything else. Well latex paint is certainly easier to clean up, I used oil-based for all the walls and cabinets because it holds up a lot better and I still find it superior to any latex alternative. Since I didn't want to purchase a lot of hardware, I decided to keep the brushed brass hinges that were already on the cabinets. I removed them all and my mother cleaned them with some barkeepers friend. I purchased some modern brushed gold handles which matched the hinges to update all the cabinets! I think the result came out really great!

Step 3: Painting Countertops and Floor Prep

The original color scheme was brown and a pale faded yellow 🤢. The original square tile was 8-in orange tiles. All in all the kitchen looked very dated. The countertops were also a pale yellow Formica. Again since everything was temporary, I decided to risk it and paint both the floors and the countertops. I did a lot of research on what would be the best possible way to do this. What I decided to do was:
1) Lightly sand countertops and tile. You want the surface to have some roughness in order for the paint to better adhere.
2) I then wiped all the surfaces down, and then used a TSP cleaner to make sure they were absolutely dust free.
3) Next I used a special primer made for the best adhesion and applied it to the countertops and floors.

Step 4: Painting Countertops and Floor

Now that the floors and countertops are ready, we have to paint them. I again used an oil-based paint Behr ultra white. I used to brush to get in all the grout grooves, and then went over everything with a roller. Although oil paint is fairly tough, I wanted a superior protection because of how high traffic these floors and countertops are. So I used a water-based polyurethane to topcoat. One thing I did learn from this experience is that polyurethane has a slight tint to it. Because I was using an ultra white it did fade the white a little (closer to eggshell) and had to worry about drips. In hindsight, white might not be the best color for this method, but if you really want white I would do it again. I did three coats of polyurethane on the floors and two coats on the countertop (Because visibly it was closer and the tint was more visible, I only did two coats on countertops). This can also be improved by doing lighter coats and not applying so much on the brush or roller.

Step 5: Year Later Update

I've now had the kitchen painted for a year, and I can say that I have no regrets! If you're looking for a quick way to improve a kitchen temporarily this is the method to use! I wouldn't paint floors and countertops if it was something permanent, but would highly recommend it if you're hating what you have! A year later and there's only a few dings in the floor where I dropped something heavy or metal and it penetrated the paint. The countertops I have had no issues, I'm just very careful not to put anything hot on them or cut directly on them. It is held up much better than I expected it to, and I plan to take a little paint and touch up the two or three dings in the floor.