A $5,000 Kitchen Makeover Transforms “Very Orange” Cabinets from the 2010s
Second, the split-level island didn’t feel functional. Credit: Myriam Provost Credit: Myriam Provost
ABOUT THIS BEFORE & AFTER
HOME TYPE: House
PROJECT TYPE: Kitchen
SKILL LEVEL: DIY
RENTAL FRIENDLY: No
After tackling a furniture flip, some DIYers might feel confident enough in their painting, hardware swapping, and carpentry skills to transform an entire room. Myriam Provost (@atelier.renouveau) is a furniture flipper who works on cabinets, tables, and dressers, mostly, but when she couldn’t stand the color of her kitchen cabinets anymore, she knew she could apply her same painting savvy to those.
“When we moved in a year and a half ago, I already knew I wanted to update the kitchen cabinets myself with a little paint,” Myriam says. “Although, after using our kitchen for a couple months, I noticed the other things that annoyed me,” she says.
Namely, she didn’t like the two-level kitchen island, the microwave over the range, and the color of the backsplash. The latter “was an almost exact match with the floor tiles, which gave no contrast and were also in the orange tones,” Myriam says. Here’s how she upgraded the circa-2010 kitchen.
She traded orange-toned cabinets for a blue-gray.
“The cabinets were in great condition, and the shape wasn’t outdated, but the finish was discolored and very orange,” Myriam explains. With the help of her mom, Marie-Andrée, Myriam, she repainted the cabinets.
“I’m especially proud of my color choice for the cabinets,” Myriam says, calling Benjamin Moore’s Hale Navy “the perfect moody blue.”
Myriam’s best cabinet painting advice is to number which door hinges go with which cabinets because it took her a long time to reassemble everything after removing the doors. She switched the cabinet pulls and knobs, though, so that wasn’t an issue. But before Myriam upgraded her cabinets, she addressed a couple of other dysfunctional things in the space.
The kitchen island got a makeover.
She disassembled the multilevel kitchen island, “which luckily, were two cabinets screwed in together,” Myriam says, and built a larger second half with storage, including room for the microwave so that a range hood could be added over the stove.
She painted the base of the island with the same navy shade and added a quartz countertop from IKEA. (She actually replaced all of the countertops throughout the kitchen, the biggest splurge in the approximately $5,000 project.)
“I love the extra space to prepare food and to gather around with friends and family,” Myriam says of the island upgrade. “Also, for the kitchen island, I only changed the part that I didn’t like and kept the other instead of changing the whole thing, so reusing is definitely the way to go for budget and eco-friendly reasons.”
A new backsplash also helps eliminate orange tones.
Myriam says the hardest part of the project was demoing out the backsplash with the help of her husband, Louis, because it was so messy. (That, and a slight electrical wiring hiccup at the end of the project.)
Myriam and Louis selected white and gray porcelain brick tiles. “Doing this project ourselves felt very rewarding, and we make a great team,” she says. “This new space makes me feel at home.”
Inspired? Submit your own project here.
Further Reading
Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About Article’s DTC Furniture
We Tested (and Rated!) All the Sofas at Pottery Barn — Here Are the Best for Every Type of Need
