Of course, we would love to gut and renovate everything in our master bathroom and make it a brand new, updated oasis, but that just wasn’t in our budget nor would it be in the next few years. I kept brainstorming what changes would make the space feel new and more modern without breaking the budget. New hardware, fixtures, and colors cabinets would make the space feel refreshed. It was made up in my head that I was going to follow through with these changes, with or without Michael’s help.

Picking the new hardware and fixtures was the easy part. It was the cabinets I was worried about. I had heard nightmares about DIY painting your own cabinets. In the back of my head I just kept telling myself that God forbid I do screw the cabinets up that bad, we will just hire someone as an SOS fix. I did my research and watched about a million YouTube videos (YouTube University…am I right?) about the proper way to DIY paint cabinets. I came across many who had used this cabinet transformation kit and had wonderful results. I called it “Cabinet Transformation for Dummies” because they make it so simple. If I could just paint the cabinets and change the hardware and faucets, I knew the bathroom could be transformed from drab to fab…on a budget, of course!

We had picked out a few Sherwin Williams paint colors that we were choosing from in the mean time…when we thought we’d be sanding and priming and painting. I saw the Rustoleum Cabinet Transformation kit on the shelf I was like…you know what, let’s just try it! I noticed there were two types, one that prepares the cabinets for a lighter shade and one for transforming to a darker shade, we went with the “dark tint base” kit because we were going from a lighter oak colored cabinet (see before photo below for reference) to a darker grey/blue color. to a lighter shade and one for transforming to a darker shade. As you can see in the picture of the box, there is a variety of colors you can choose from for the “tinted base” coat, which acts as the paint color. We went with Grey Harbor because it was SO close to what we originally envisioned. The kit comes with a tinted base coat and when you purchase the cabinet transformation kit, the paint guys there at Home Depot or Lowe’s tint the paint to the color of your choosing…from the provided options. I did confirm with them that you could additionally use a regular paint color over the tinted base and before the protective finishing coat if you wanted a different color from what was offered by the kit, we were just lucky in that it almost matched our desired color! Adding an extra coat of paint would also lengthen the timeline due to drying time, just keep that in mind!

To give you an idea of the timeline, I started on a Saturday morning and had the hardware installed and cabinet doors back up by Tuesday. I just followed the instructions to a tee and tested my patience… It seriously was a very simple task, more tedious and time consuming than challenging. Getting the cabinet doors and hardware off was probably the most labor intensive it got. Other than that it is important to follow the detailed instructions from brush stroke direction, materials to use, and drying time to get a good quality result.

Stripping, sanding, or priming are not necessary with this transformation kit. The basic steps are as follows:

• Clean and de-gloss using the provided de-glosser serum and scrub pads

• Apply tinted bond coat (make sure you have it already tinted before applying; recommend doing two coats and allowing instructing drying time)

• Apply decorative glaze coat (optional ~ I started this step but did not love how it looked so skipped to the final step)

• Apply protective top coat

The only other things I purchased that were not included in the kit was a microfiber cloth and two paint brushes. The rest was provided!

These simple, yet time consuming, steps transformed our bathroom from blah and dated to a more elevated and modern vibe! All in all I will be doing this process again, on to the guest/kids bathroom cabinets next…

If you try this process at home please TAG ME on instagram @_caliryan so I can see and share!

Until next time,

Cal

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