painted white PART 4 - the finishing touches

SO MANY people go to tremendous effort and money to makeover their kitchen only to fall short on the final few details. The finishing touches are SO important! You can do everything else right and if you get these wrong you kitchen just falls short.

Crown Molding

If you go to all the work and effort to paint your cabinets, PLEASE please finish them off with crown molding. Just look at this persons before and after pictures. A decent effort on their part but can you see how the cabinets are just crying out for some crown molding? 

It is inexpensive and easy to install. Please take your remodel one step further and install some crown. While we're still on this picture, two tone cabinets are really popular and totally acceptable to do. It is definitely a personal preference kind of thing but if you want to do two tone cabinets, you'll probably be more successful if you paint an island a separate color rather than bases one color and uppers a different color. 

Hinges

If you have exposed hinges and ESPECIALLY if you're refacing your cabinet doors you'll want to consider getting concealed/hidden hinges. Hidden hinges take cabinets from a contractor look to a custom look with not too much effort or cost. Those hinges you had on your oak or alder cabinets are going to stand out like a sore thumb on white cabinets. There are SO MANY different kinds of concealed hinges that are so inexpensive that you really have no business keeping your exposed hinges.

Consider which kind of hinge you're going to use because if you have exposed hinges and you're going to upgrade to hidden hinges, you're going to need to putty and sand the holes on the outside of your cabinet frames before you ever start painting. 

In both of these pictures, the kitchens have been improved but it's like I was mentioning in my first post on making over your kitchen - are you looking for a quick cosmetic change or are you hoping to achieve a long term, DREAM BIG solution? Also, these cabinets too, are just crying out for some crown molding.

Hardware

This is where you can really have some fun. The options are endless and there are so many good choices these days that you can really allow your personality to show through. The cost options are also endless. There are just a few tips that will make your hardware installation a success.

• Get a template so all of your knobs end up at the same height and the same distance apart. Stores like Home Depot and Lowe's sell these rather inexpensively but you can also make your own. Nothing will ruin the look of your newly remodeled kitchen than having hardware that is crooked or hung at all different heights.
  
• You CAN MIX METALS! This is probably one of the top 5 questions I get when people are asking my advice. This needs to be done tastefully and I'm not suggesting you alternate gold and silver knobs on every other cabinet door - but if you have a chandelier with polished nickel on it, does that mean you can't have gold knobs - certainly not! As a general rule, your faucet and cabinet pulls/knobs should have matching finishes but that doesn't mean that everything in your kitchen needs the exact same finish.
  

This kitchen looks like it had a visitor from the Palace of Versailles come do a little decorating - which is unfortunate because it has lots of potential to be successful.

This kitchen has stainless steel, polished nickel, oil rubbed bronze and antique brass all done successfully.

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