Y’all, I finally have paint on the cabinet doors and drawer fronts!! I decided to tackle these one section at a time since I have a total of 50 doors and drawers in the whole room. So for now, I’m working on the cabinets for the mural wall, which currently looks like this…
This is the wall I’m the most anxious to see finished, so naturally I’d start there.
And after what seemed forever getting these doors and drawer fronts prepped — sanded, trim attached, caulked, and primed — I was finally ready to paint yesterday! I only got the backs done, but they’re painted and sealed, and they look so pretty!!
When I got up this morning, I was so anxious to head to the studio and see how they all looked after they were dry since they were all at various stages of drying when I finally went to bed last night. And I was so excited to open the door and see this gorgeous satiny finish in the sunlight coming through the windows.
That, my friends, is the beauty of my absolute favorite clear coat, General Finishes High Performance Topcoat in a flat finish (affiliate link).
I swear by the stuff. I’ve used several water-based clear coats before, including Minwax, Rust-Oleum, and more, but in my humble opinion, those are junk compared to General Finishes.
So after admiring the smooth finish, I turned the light on to see the actual color. It’s so perfect! It’s pink without being too bright or looking like it belongs in a child’s room. This color is Sherwin Williams Tuberose, but I had it color matched in Behr paint.
Behr paint is my absolute favorite general purpose paint, and since I almost never go to Lowe’s or Sherwin Williams, and Home Depot is like my second home, it’s really convenient for me to get my paint there. They have all of the Sherwin Williams and Lowes formulas in their system, so you don’t even have to take a sample with you to have it color matched. It may not be 100% identical when mixed in the Behr base color, but it’s always close enough for me.
I love this color so much! And I love that it looks so much like the dark color in my favorite flower in the whole mural. I didn’t color match it, so that was just a happy accident.
If everything goes as planned, I should have the fronts done today! I don’t know that I’ll get them all installed today, but I’m definitely going to try. I haven’t yet decided how I want to add the gold accents. I’ve considered paints, paint pens, metallic wax, gold leaf, etc. So far, the front runner is a Krylon 18kt Gold Leafing Pen. I think a pen/marker would be the easiest, and according to this video comparing several gold pens/markers, it’s the most metallic.
Regarding the cabinets just inside the studio from the breakfast room, someone suggested that I use the flower mural wallpaper as an inset accent on the doors. I can’t seem to get that idea out of my mind. I really do like the idea of this section of cabinets being different from the rest. I worry that three sections of cabinets all painted the same pink color might be too much. So making these different appeals to me.
I’m just not sure about the flower design, though. I think it would be too much to use the flowers on these cabinets and as curtains in the back entry. So it seems that I’d have to choose one or the other.
To see how it might look, I took the fabric and draped it over the cabinet. My main concern is that it might be too much seeing it from the main areas of the house. I’ve been looking forward to the day that I can leave the studio door open, so the floral pattern would be visible from the entryway, parts of the living room, kitchen, and breakfast room.
I can’t decide if it would be too much and too overpowering, or if it would be just the right amount of color and pattern, and give a bit of a preview of what’s in the rest of the studio. If I do use it on the cabinets, it would only be inset panels, and wouldn’t cover the entire bank of cabinets. So there would be breaks in the floral design rather than one solid mass of flowers like on the mural wall. In other words, it would be obvious that these are cabinets.
And if the flowers would look better as curtains on the back doors, I do wonder if I could come up with another idea to make these cabinets different but coordinating with the rest of the room. I like the general idea, but I can’t think of a specific idea!
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.