Painted Kitchen Cabinets: 1 Year Later How they Held Up

Last year the hubby and I geared up for our first One Room Challenge… and we tackled a complete kitchen makeover! It was a big project but I am so glad that we did it… this room was small, dated and Christmasy. Yup, Christmasy… it’s now a descriptive word.

With green cabinets and red counters it’s really the only word that fits!

So we rolled up our sleeves and grabbed a paint brush… starting with the green kitchen cabinets. It’s amazing what a coat of paint can do! It took about a week to paint each cabinet with two coats of waterbased enamel (in between work and life) but they sure turned out pretty!

Just take a look at a quick before and after:

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Of course, it’s pretty as a picture and while I love how it turned out the real test of time is how well the whole thing holds up! I mean SW Site White is pretty but it definitely needs to be wiped down from time to time… especially the way my hubby cooks.

It’s kind of like a mini-explosion every time he uses the kitchen… but at least he cooks! You won’t hear any complaints out of me.

If you caught last weeks weekly update you heard first hand exactly what I think of our little kitchen makeover but here is the photo proof.

It’s held up pretty darn well if you ask me! We wipe these babies down with a wet rag or sponge all the time… especially under the sink and around the stove. We don’t have a dishwasher so things get a little messy when we’re doing the dishes… we definitely have to wipe the cabinets down when we’re finished.

We used Sherwin Williams ProClassic waterbased enamel to paint over the old finish and it is beautiful. It dried to a hard shiny finish which cleans beautifully and doesn’t really scuff or scratch.

We wiped down all of the cabinets with Simple Green before we started and for the most part that did it’s job. It is a degreaser after all! There are one or two spots where there must have been a built up grease though… take a look at the picture below. On the left side of the picture, right above my spice bottles? Do you see the four little green nicks?

I believe that was a built up grease spot because if you look closely the paint didn’t adhere at all to that one little spot. It’s definitely green straight through. It’s a tiny little spot though and unless you’re really looking for problems (like me) I doubt anyone would ever notice.